Each clear night in the countryside, we’ll stand watch for the northern lights — eerie, ever-changing glows in the sky caused when energetic particles from the Sun slam into Earth’s upper atmosphere, literally electrifying it. Because these particles are channeled by our planet’s magnetic field, they work their magic where the field is strongest, near the magnetic poles. Iceland, close to the north magnetic pole, is blessed with frequent and spectacular auroral displays. They take on many forms: undulating curtains, pulsing rays, and dramatic overhead coronas, or crowns. Their colors — green, red, purple, or blue — range from subtle to vibrant; each hue comes from different atoms.

     Iceland lies alongside one of the most active weather areas in the Northern Hemisphere. The Icelandic low, about 1,000 km to the southwest, is the source of a frequent and endless supply of weather systems that move past the island, each one bringing its own retinue of cloud and precipitation. The Gulf Stream waters that bathe Iceland also warm the air and fill it with moisture. As this warm and humid air encounters the colder water from the arctic basin west and north of the island, fog and low clouds form and produce grey weather (and nearly constant wind) even when an active low is not present. Many locales claim that if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes — but this is especially true in Iceland!