Northern Lights Forecast for Tórshavn

Northern Lights in Tórshavn

Tórshavn is the capital of the Faroe Islands, a town of about 14,000 people on the east coast of Streymoy. At 62°N it lies two degrees of latitude south of Reykjavík and more than seven south of Tromsø, so it takes stronger activity for the aurora to reach the islands than it does in Iceland or northern Norway, and a typical display sits low in the northern sky. The town’s lights hide the weaker ones.

Up the Oyggjarvegur to Norðradalur and Sornfelli

The quickest way out of the light is the Oyggjarvegur, the old mountain road toward the airport, which looks down over Kaldbaksbotnur at the head of Kaldbaksfjørður. A side road winds down to Norðradalur, a farm village of about ten people on the west coast, some 20 minutes from the center, with the island of Koltur across the water. Farther on, a narrow road with many switchbacks climbs to a car park at about 630 m near the top of Sornfelli, the highest road in the islands. Leave it for nights without ice.

Kirkjubøur, on the far side of the hill

Kirkjubøreyn, the 350 m hill south-west of town, stands between Tórshavn’s lights and Kirkjubøur, a village of about 75 people on the south-west coast of Streymoy that looks west to Hestur and Koltur and south to Sandoy. In daylight it is the islands’ medieval center, with the ruins of the Magnus Cathedral from around 1300 and St Olav’s Church, built in the 12th century and still in use.

Twenty wet days in a Tórshavn December

North Atlantic depressions track past the islands all winter, and Tórshavn gets rain or snow on about 20 days in an average December and again in January. The dark season is short at this latitude: the nights are too light for the aurora from May to early August, and in late December the sun is up for only about five hours.

Tinganes and the turf-roofed Nordic House

Tinganes, the narrow point that splits the harbor in two, is where the Norse held their parliament in the Viking Age, and its small turf-roofed houses still hold offices of the Faroese government. The Nordic House, opened in 1983 and designed by Ola Steen of Norway and Kolbrún Ragnarsdóttir of Iceland, has a 2,000 m² turf roof.

The Norröna and Vágar Airport

Smyril Line’s Norröna sails all year from Hirtshals in northern Denmark and docks in the middle of town; its onward leg to Iceland stops for the winter. Vágar Airport, built by the British during the Second World War next to Sørvágur, is about 40 minutes’ drive away through the subsea tunnel to Streymoy.