If you’ve been planning your Iceland self-drive adventure for a while now, you’ve probably encountered a lot of contradicting information about whether the conditions and Weather in Iceland is something you need to worry about. Some websites and blog posts you read make it sound like we live in some apocalyptic state year-round while others tell you not to worry about anything because the 4 days they were in Iceland the weather was fine.

Let me just set the record straight before we go any further: The Icelandic weather and our unpredictable conditions is a real issue you should take very seriously. That doesn’t mean the weather is bad all the time or that you’ll be in constant danger. Most of the time the weather is just kind of meh – not great but not that bad either. We also have a whole lot of wonderful, beautiful, spectacular days that make you wonder what all the fuzz is about when you read all those warnings.

The problem we have here, on this rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, is that we never know when we’ll have the good days and when we should expect the bad days. Of course, winter is worse weather wise than the summer but if you’re driving the ring Road around the country in July, it’s not unheard of that you could encounter snowfall on top of some mountain passes. Just like you could experience 15°C and sun in the middle of January. Both of these examples are rare occurrences but they do happen. If you take the weather out of the equation we then also have semi-regular glacier floods, volcanic eruptions and other seismic activity that can affect one’s travel around the island.

The key to a safe visit to Iceland is just to be informed about what’s going on at any given moment and to follow the advice you’re given. Which is where the three websites below come in to play.

Safetravel.is

For anyone planning a self-drive trip to Iceland, safetravel.is should be your first stop when it comes to safety on the road.

In short, Safetravel is an accident prevention project founded and managed by the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue (ICE-SAR) or the very same people that come to your rescue if you get yourself into a pickle in Iceland. They operate the safetravel.is website along with information screens that are located in gas stations and information centers all over the country and the main aim of this project is simply to provide information and services to keep you safe during your travels in Iceland.

On the website you will find alerts about travel conditions, whether it’s our volatile weather, erupting volcanos, floods or risks of avalanches. Before you panic and cancel your trip, the warnings are mostly about the weather!

You will also find good general information about driving in Iceland, winter driving, hiking and you can even Skype with a Safety Agent if you have any specific questions that you feel the website doesn’t answer.

It should be part of your routine, as important as brushing your teeth and that first cup of morning coffee, to check safetravel.is before you head out in the morning.

Road.is

On the website of the Icelandic Road Administration, you can see the conditions of every road in Iceland updated in real time from 8:00 to 16:00 from May 1st to October 31st and from 07:00 to 22:00 for the rest of the year.

You can see a rough overview of the whole country just to get an idea about the main roads but then you can also dive into each area and see information about conditions on the road (slippery, spots of ice, extremely slippery, etc.) along with information about road closures, road repairs and a count of how many cars have driven the road in the last hour /from midnight. Furthermore, the maps also indicate the wind speed and temperatures at any given moment but the information comes from automatic weather stations 24/7.

If you click on the name of each road, you will get detailed weather information for the road and in most cases web cameras to see with your own eyes what the conditions are like.

For nervous drivers or anyone who needs to pass some of our more notorious mountain passes, especially in winter, this information is enormously helpful.

Vedur.is

We here in Iceland are ruled by the weather so it’s no wonder that many of us (most?) check the website of the Icelandic Met Office religiously every day. Especially, if you’re like me and you work in tourism where you need to keep on top of things for your guests.

Although it’s always nice to know what the weather will be like in the next 24 hours, the reason you should check vedur.is often is the alerts. The met office is working with a new color-coded warning system where they are mostly focusing on the impact the weather is going to have which is much more useful to travelers than trying to figure out what exactly gale force winds or scattered light showers means.

If there’s an orange warning, it’s likely that you should not be traveling for example.

The met office also has information about seismic activity, volcanic eruptions (when they are happening) and a northern lights forecast which is a helpful indicator but not an accurate tool to predict the northern lights.