Summer climate on Svalbard
Summer climatic conditions in Spitsbergen
The summer of Svalbard is more or less like winter in Italy, with the associated cold and snow, a little rain and strong winds. People who choose to spend their holidays trekking on Svalbard must love cold weather and must have the desire to keep away from hot places.
If you are well equipped, you can live in the Arctic without any problems. Here is a summary of the weather conditions I experienced on Svalbard.
Perpetual sun: the sun shone for 24 hours a day and was always there and it was positioned as if it was always 10 am or 2 pm. And what does this lead to? A strange thing happened to me: I was never tired. I went to sleep because I had to, but i did not feel like sleeping at all. I never had a complete night sleep and I woke up at least four times per night. This was useful when it came to the bear watching: I woke up in the middle of the night in broad daylight. I was spared the traumatic impact of waking up before dawn.
Frequent cold wind: you can really feel the Polar wind, so prepare to be well covered. When the wind was calm, you did not feel cold, not as much at least. When the wind started blowing fiercely I tried to cover every centimetre of my body which was still uncovered. Cold winds are very frequent.
Scarce rainfall: we had some rain on the last two days at the first camp. It was light but continuous. Rain here is very rare but we managed to see it.
Rare snowfall: It snowed once for about an hour, but the snowflakes did not settle on the ground.
Ice and snow: Svalbard is full of glaciers. Snow is everywhere: on the mountains and on the prairies. You can find it anywhere. Tights and waterproof shoes are necessary. Pieces of ice detach from the glaciers and are carried by the wind into water or onto the beach. Svalbald gives us the unique landscape of a beach covered with ice of different sizes. Iceberg and ice blocks float on the water and further north you can see wide ice plateau covering the ocean.
Temperature: temperature is around 5° C, but with strong winds or foggy weather you obviously will feel colder than that.
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