The air­line SAS on the ground due to strike – this reminds of the very unp­lea­sant (to put it mild­ly) situa­ti­on in July 2022, which show­ed how much a remo­te place like Lon­gye­ar­by­en depends on relia­ble traf­fic, espe­ci­al­ly air traf­fic. This time, it is the cabin staff.

As usu­al in such a situa­ti­on, the fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment is hard to pre­dict. It is by no means clear that con­se­quen­ces will be as dra­stic as in July 2022, an agree­ment bet­ween the con­flict par­ties may be rea­ched at any time. And by the way, the other air­line, Nor­we­gi­an, is not affec­ted any­way.

Sval­bard­pos­ten repor­ted on Fri­day that, as far as Lon­gye­ar­by­en is con­cer­ned, traf­fic is expec­ted to work as sche­du­led during the weekend but the strike may pick up on Wed­nes­day, wit­hout any­thing in par­ti­cu­lar being said about Mon­day and Tues­day.

SAS and Lon­gye­ar­by­en: occa­sio­nal­ly a com­pli­ca­ted rela­ti­onship. Curr­ent­ly, an upco­ming strike might affect flights for an uncer­tain peri­od of time.

Tra­vel­lers boo­ked on flights affec­ted by the strike are cont­ac­ted by the air­line direct­ly. Tho­se who don’t get any mes­sa­ge should expect their flight to depar­tu­re as sche­du­led.

Fin­gers crossed for ever­y­bo­dy who is tra­vel­ling the­se days!

In a rowing boat from Trom­sø to Lon­gye­ar­by­en – pos­si­bly not ever­y­bo­dies dream and wit­hout any doubt some­thing that many would con­sider cra­zy or even impos­si­ble. That was obvious­ly not shared by Andy Savill, Toby Gre­go­ry and Orlaith Demp­sey, who star­ted “The Arc­tic Row 2024” in Trom­sø and arri­ved in Lon­gye­ar­by­en on Fri­day (16th August) after 16 stre­nuous days across the Barents Sea.

Across the Barents Sea (with Bjørnøya in the back­ground) in a rowing boat.

The boat is spe­ci­al­ly desi­gned, but nevert­hel­ess the crew expe­ri­en­ced some tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties. Near Bjørnøya, the auto stee­ring sys­tem fai­led and the crew had to steer manu­al­ly with ropes, some­thing that dis­tur­bed the watch sys­tem and cost a lot of sleep. The three were accor­din­gly quite exhaus­ted when they arri­ved in Lon­gye­ar­by­en on Fri­day after­noon; they told Sval­bard­pos­ten that good sleep in a real bed, a show­er and food whe­re the hig­hest prio­ri­ties on their per­so­nal wish­list.

During the crossing, the team coll­ec­ted obser­va­tions and data inclu­ding under­wa­ter sound recor­dings for edu­ca­ti­on and sci­ence and to rise envi­ron­men­tal awa­re­ness.

Hot news from Lon­gye­ar­by­en, in the truest sen­se of the word. The meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal sta­ti­on at Lon­gye­ar­by­en air­port recor­ded a stun­ning 20.3 degrees cen­ti­gra­de yes­ter­day (Sun­day, August 11) bet­ween 1400 and 1500 – war­mer than any August day befo­re on record, which goes back to 1964.

And it was wit­hout any doubt also warm in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, as we can con­firm from our own expe­ri­ence.

It felt like 30 degrees on Sun­day on the north coast of Spits­ber­gen ☀️🥵 it may well have been clo­se to 20 degrees, but we don’t have a pro­per ther­mo­me­ter here.

June and July pro­vi­ded some new ent­ries to a long ran­ge of record-brea­king wea­ther data in recent years. Cli­ma­te chan­ge is hap­pe­ning and it is stron­ger in the Arc­tic than else­whe­re.

The month­ly tem­pe­ra­tu­re avera­ge for June, as offi­ci­al­ly mea­su­red at Sval­bard air­port Lon­gyear, was as high as 8.3 degrees cen­ti­gra­de, hig­her than ever befo­re on record.

July was 1.3 degrees war­mer than the month­ly avera­ge, which now refers to the refe­rence peri­od of 1991-2020, a peri­od alre­a­dy signi­fi­cant­ly war­mer than the pre­vious refe­rence peri­od 1961-1990.

Tem­pe­ra­tu­re records in Spitz­ber­gen: tra­vel­lers could enjoy some warm and sun­ny sum­mer days both on small boats and on big ships …

But what real­ly caught the meteorologist’s atten­ti­on in July was the pre­ci­pi­ta­ti­on rather than tem­pe­ra­tu­re. With a stun­ning 48.7 mmm, it was more than twice as much rain than usu­al (20 mm), as the meteo­ro­lo­gist at Sval­bard air­port told Sval­bard­pos­ten. And inde­ed the­re were some very wet days in July, as both locals and tou­rists can con­firm. The small pede­stri­an bridge Per­le­por­ten in Lon­gye­ar­by­en (named after a coas­tal cave on Bjørnøya) was dama­ged by tor­ren­ti­al run­off during strong rain­falls.

… but the­re was also wind, fog and rain, and not too litt­le of it all. This is the pede­stri­an bridge Per­le­por­ten in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, which was dama­ged during hea­vy rain­falls.