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In May 2025, an unusually intense heatwave struck Iceland and eastern Greenland, breaking numerous temperature records. On 15 May, Iceland's national May temperature record was set at 26.6°C at Egilsstaðir Airport, with several locations recording temperatures up to 13°C above the monthly average.

A new international analysis by the World Weather Attribution group shows that human-induced climate change made this heatwave around 40 times more likely and, on average, three degrees Celsius hotter than it would have been without global warming. The study also suggests that if global temperatures rise by 2.6°C, such heatwaves could become at least twice as frequent and two degrees hotter.

Temperatures reached or exceeded 20°C at several weather stations for 10 consecutive days.

May temperature records were repeatedly broken at weather stations across the country. 

A new national May temperature record of 26.6°C was set at Egilsstaðir Airport on May 15^th.  

Updated April 8, at 16:15 UTC

Deformation measurements clearly show that uplift beneath Svartsengi is ongoing. The current uplift rate is faster than that observed following previous eruptions. This may be explained by the large volume of magma — around 30 million cubic meters — that was released from the system during the most recent event.

However, it is still too early to predict how the rate of magma accumulation will develop. Past events have shown that accumulation rates typically decline as more time passes between eruptions. At least a week, and possibly several weeks, will need to pass before we can evaluate if — and how — the rate of accumulation will change.

Updated 25. March at 15:00 UTC

GPS deformation data shows that magma continues to accumulate beneath Svartsengi, although the pace of land uplift has slightly decreased in recent weeks. Despite the slower uplift, experts still consider it likely that a magma intrusion and/or eruption will occur along the Sundhnúkur crater row.

At around 14:30 yesterday (12 March 2025), a rather intense earthquake swarm began offshore Reykjanestá. The swarm was most intense at the beginning when about 50 – 60 earthquakes were recorded in the first few hours. As the day progressed, the activity decreased but then increased again shortly before midnight when an earthquake of magnitude 3.5 occurred. When the activity increased again in the evening, it shifted slightly westward as the image shows (blue circles indicate the location of earthquakes that occurred at the beginning of the swarm yesterday, while yellow and red ones show earthquakes from late last evening and night).