Today, Svalbard is the warmest place in Norway

Svalbard was the only part of Norway where temperatures stood above zero °C on 8 January, according to a report by The Barents Observer. Several weather stations in the archipelago registered readings over freezing that day. The Norwegian Meteorological Service announced the situation in a message published on Yr at 12:30, saying that Svalbard was the warmest location in the country.

On the Norwegian mainland the picture was the reverse. A spell of cold weather was spreading across the country, and temperatures there were falling to below -30 °C.

The meteorologists gave a two-part explanation for the contrast. A low-pressure system sitting between Spitsbergen and the North Pole was steering mild air from the west toward Svalbard. A high-pressure system close to Bjørnøya was holding back the cold air, so it stayed to the south of the archipelago.

This is a short-term exception within a longer pattern of warming across the area, the Barents Observer said. Based on a new report from the Meteorological Service, 2025 was the warmest year ever recorded in Norway. In that report, the temperature over land was 1.5 °C higher than the normal for the present climate, which is calculated from the period 1991 to 2020. Measured against the pre-industrial period of 1871 to 1900, 2025 was 2.8 °C warmer.

Another first was noted: every one of the 12 months of 2025 was warmer than normal, which had not happened before in the records. The meteorologists stated that the high temperatures have a strong connection to climate change caused by humans.