On this page I will put information about the weather and climate on Jan Mayen. The most of the information comes from the The Norwegian Meteorological Institute.
This map points out the location of the different meteorological stations on the island. I have included the Austrian station, because they made complete weather observations every hour through the year they spent in the Maria Musch bay.
We can see the location of "Eldstemetten" (the oldest met. station) in Jamesonbukta, which was built in 1921, evacuated and destroyed after the outbreak of the second world war.
During the period 1941-45 there was a weather station in connection with the Norwegian garrison which defended the island. (And vice versa - the garrison was there so that the allies could get weather information from the island, which was crucial for the convoys and warfare in the Northern Atlantic). I 1945 the station was moved to "Atlantic city" at Nordlaguna, a station set up by US forces to run a HF/DF (High Frequency Direction Finder("Huff Duff")) station there, for finding German automatic weather stations and tracking German U-boats.
I 1949 the meteorological station was moved up to the top of the brink above Atlantic city, and the station we today call "Gamlemetten" (the old met station) was built there.
Today’s station was built in 1962 after a period of overlap between observations from "Gamlemetten" and observations taken in Båtvika (Olonkinbyen), observations were taken regularly at the new met station from autumn 1962. Here it’s still located.
A German automatic weather station (WFL - Wetter Funk Gerät), landed by a U-boat (U-992) in September 1944 was also sending weather information from Jan Mayen until it was picked up by a Norwegian ship and sent to Liverpool in the end of March 1945. The signals from this station however, was not detected by the HF/DF station on Jan Mayen, since it was hidden by Beerenberg, but its signals were picked up on Iceland. The station was located in Krossbukta north of Beerenberg. The location of the station is marked with an "A" on the map.
A slight digression: In a similar operation the Germans landed a weather station on the Labrador coast, this is the only known armed German landing on North American soil in World War II (except for the landing of a few special agents).
| Month | Jan. | Feb. | Mar. | Apr. | Mai | Jun. | Jul. | Aug. | Sep. | Oct. | Nov. | Des. |
| Mm precipitation | 56.0 | 53.0 | 55.0 | 40.0 | 40.0 | 35.0 | 47.0 | 61.0 | 82.0 | 82.0 | 65.0 | 65.0 |
| Temperature (ºC) | -5.7 | -6.1 | -6.1 | -3.9 | -0.7 | 2.0 | 4.2 | 4.9 | 2.8 | 0.1 | -3.3 | -5.2 |
Normal year precipitation: 681.0 mm Normal year average temperature: -1.4 ºC
German "Klimadiagramme weltweit" showing temperature and precipitation at Jan Mayen.
| Month: | Jan. | Feb. | Mar. | Apr. | May | Jun. | Jul. | Aug. | Sep. | Oct. | Nov. | Dec. |
| Max temp. | 7.7 | 10.0 | 8.0 | 9.8 | 11.3 | 18.1 | 15.0 | 15.7 | 13.4 | 15.0 | 10.0 | 8.0 |
| - Occurred year: | 1992 | 1965 | 1984 | 1984 | 1954 | 1953 | 1927 | 1939 | 1934 | 1961 | 1953 | 1997 |
| Min. temp. | -26.9 | -28.4 | -26.8 | -21.4 | -16.0 | -5.1 | -3.2 | -2.3 | -5.0 | -18.2 | -19.5 | -24.2 |
| - Occurred year: | 1966 | 1963 | 1969 | 1942 | 1950 | 1923 | 1968 | 1941 | 1949 | 1951 | 1964 | 1968 |
| Avg. temp. 1922-99 | -4.6 | -5.2 | -5.1 | -3.4 | -0.5 | 2.3 | 4.8 | 5.3 | 3.3 | 0.3 | -2.1 | -3.9 |
It should here be noted that the Austrians between 3 and 4 pm on the 30. of December 1882 measured -30.6 ºC which is the lowest temperature recorded on the island. They also measured -28.6 ºC at 3 am on the 4. of January 1883, which is the lowest recorded temperature for January.
| Month: | Jan. | Feb. | Mar. | Apr. | May | Jun. | Jul. | Aug. | Sep. | Oct. | Nov. | Dec. |
| Highest mean temp. | 1.2 | 0.1 | -1.0 | 0.7 | 1.7 | 5.2 | 6.8 | 7.7 | 8.0 | 4.2 | 2.2 | 1.7 |
| - Occurred year: | 1947 | 1929 | 1923 | 1930 | 1936 | 1930 | 1924 | 1934 | 1934 | 1938 | 1954 | 1938 |
| Lowest mean temp. | -11.1 | -14.5 | -13.4 | -7.4 | -3.1 | 0.3 | 2.2 | 2.1 | 0.8 | 3.5 | -8.9 | -11.1 |
| - Occurred year: | 1966 | 1943 | 1968 | 1973 | 1968 | 1951 | 1968 | 1943 | 1964 | 1968 | 1971 | 1987 |
| Mean temp. 1922-99 | -4.6 | -5.2 | -5.1 | -3.4 | -0.5 | 2.3 | 4.8 | 5.3 | 3.3 | 0.3 | -2.1 | -3.9 |
| Month: | Aug. 82. | Sep. 82 | Oct. 82 | Nov. 82 | Dec. 82 | Jan. 83 | Feb. 83 | Mar. 83 | Apr. 83 | May. 83 | Jun. 83 | Jul. 83 |
| Mean temp.: | 3.1 | 1.9 | 2.1 | -1.9 | -9.6 | -7.3 | -4.5 | -10.3 | -2.7 | -4.0 | 1.9 | 3.5 |
The values in marked with bold deviates from what later is measured at the Norwegian stations.
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