Flesje and Ullensvang 100,'Vossevangen 140, and Baidal 165.
April is the first month in the year that for all, even the highest
lying stations, has a mean temperature above 32°, and in May the
temperature rises rapidly, especially in the fjords.
Wind. Out at the extreme west coast stations, calm prevails
comparatively seldom. The average velocity of. the wind is from
18 to 20 miles an hour, and storms are frequent. At Helliso and
Ona, there are between 60 and 70 stormy days in the course of
the year, while both the mean velocity and the number of stormy
days diminishes on coming within the belt of rocks and islands,
into the fjords, and up the mountain passes, where the average
velocity is not much above 2 miles an hour, and where storms are
of extremely rare occurrence, on an average, 2 or 3 times a year.
Most of the storms, both on the coast and farther inland, are
in the winter, and usually from the S, while the prevailing
wind in the winter is generally a land wind, in the summer, a
sea-breeze.
Rainfall. The annual rainfall is very great over the whole
of western Norway. A little within 'the coast there lies a series
of sharply defined zones, one after another, from S to N, about the
stations Nedreba, Jasendal, Farstveit, and Daviken, with an annual
rainfall exceeding 83 inches. From these maxima, we find that the
rainfall becomes rapidly less towards the east, and on coming up
on to the mountain wildernesses that border south-eastern Norway.
Westwards towards the sea, it diminishes much more slowly, the
extreme coast line in the south having an annual rainfall of about
39 inches, immediately outside Bergen 51 inches (Bergen itself has
75 inches), outside Flora 75 inches and at Kristiansund 39 inches.
The rainfall axis indicated by the above maximal stations, is continued
southwards and eastwards within the coast-line, which it follows; and
it can be traced right on to the previously mentioned rainfall maximum
north of Kristiania. The average number of days in the year
when rain or snow falls is lowest -9 121 —- in the Sogne Fjord,
but reaches 200 towards the coast. Most rain falls during the
autumn and the first months of winter. January has, on an
average, most wet days, while, as in south-eastern Norway, April
has both least rain and fewest wet days. Bain or snow falls
more regularly and continuously in winter than in summer.
Sn ow is comparatively less frequent, which is of course due
to the mild winter temperature. The number of days on which
snow falls does not generally amount to more than l/s or 1k of
the total number of days in which moisture falls in the year.
Hail is observed on the coast occasionally during the year,
in the fjords extremely seldom or never.
Fog occurs most frequently in the summer, less often in the
winter. The southernmost coast district has most foggy days in
the year, between 60 and 70; about Bergen there are between
25 and 30, farther north and in the fjords, between 10 and 20,
or even less.
T h u n d e r - s to rm s are not so frequent as in south-eastern
Norway, but occur on the coast at all seasons of the year, except
during the spring months. The so-called winter thunder-storms,
which now and then accompany the cyclonic storms of winter, are
characteristic of this stretch of coast. In the Sogne Fjord and
at Vossevangen, on the other hand, thunder-storms occur only in
the summer, but very rarely K- on an average, scarcely once a year.
III. NORWAY NORTH.
That part of the country lying north of the Dovre range,
has climatic peculiarities which recall both south-eastern and western
Norway. Northern Norway has its Gulf Stream coast, and its
inland region; but while the coast stretches uninterruptedly from
the mouth of the Trondhjem Fjord to Varda, it is only farthest
south and farthest north that the distance from the coast to the
frontier is sufficient to enable us to speak of a; real inland in
climatic respects. In the south it is the regions round the head of
the Trondhjem Fjord, and in towards the Swedish frontier, and in
the north the inland mountainous districts of Finmarken.
T em p e r a tu r e . The annual mean temperature on the coast
is 42 farthest south, and diminishes northwards to 33° at Varda.
It also decreases in the fjords and up the heights. At Stenkjser,
for instance, it is 39°, at Lierne (1463 ft) 33®and in Hatfjeld-
dalen (755 ft) 34°, but falls in Finmarken right down to 30?: at
ydvaranger, and 261/a° at Karasjok (430 ft) and Kautokeino (866 ft),
e average summer is not very warm, nor is it long. On the
coast, August | | generally the hottest month, with a mean temperature
of from .5 5 ^ in the south, to only 48°. at Varda. In