Weather Warnings

What the Icelandic Met Office has in force for South Iceland right now, in its own words, with the wind over the islands.

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Town Tools builds free, public tools for Vestmannaeyjar and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.

Where to check, before and during

Veðurstofa Íslands — the official warnings pageThe source this page reads, with the full map and the meaning of each colour. The English site is at en.vedur.is.

Herjólfur — the ferry companyWhether the boat is sailing, and which mainland harbour it is using.

SafeTravel — alerts and travel conditionsRun with ICE-SAR; carries travel alerts and lets you leave a travel plan.

Get an email when a warning is issued

Official warnings, forwarded the moment the national service issues one for the area — headline and all, in its own words. Nothing in between. No account, one-click unsubscribe.

Worth knowing

A warning for the region is not a forecast for the islands

Suðurland runs from Reykjanes across to Skeiðarársandur, most of it on the mainland. Heimaey is a small, exposed island at the seaward edge of it, so a warning written for the region can land quite differently here than at Selfoss or Vík. The Met Office's own text usually says which part of the region will get the worst of it; that sentence is the one worth reading. (The forecast regions are Veðurstofa Íslands's own; Suðurland is the one Vestmannaeyjar sits in.)

Why this matters for the boat

Almost everything that comes to the island comes by sea. Wind and swell are what stop Herjólfur sailing, and a Met Office warning is usually in force before a sailing is cancelled. Check the warning first, then the ferry company's own channels — they decide each sailing, not the warning colour.

Wind here is not unusual; the warnings are for what is

Stórhöfði, on the south headland of Heimaey, is one of the windiest measuring stations in Europe. A breezy day is ordinary. A warning is about something else: gusts that move vehicles, visibility, or sea state that closes the harbour.