Akureyri has a subpolar oceanic climate with cold though not severe winters and mild summers. The snow cover starts forming in late October and melts in April, yet snow on the mountain peaks around Akureyri can stay for the whole year. Akureyri is a very cloudy town, averaging only 1047 sunshine hours annually, with barely any sunshine between November and February, but precipitation is much lower than in southern Iceland because the prevailing winds are from the south - it is as little as a fifth as much as in Vík í Mýrdal
