Shetland Islands climate · Climate in Shetland Islands
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Climate in Shetland Islands
Climate in Shetland Islands
The weather is very much a 'feature' of the area. Although Shetland is typically only a couple of degrees cooler than mainland Scotland, and the martime climate does not lead to large falls of snow, high winds are very frequent. Whilst these make Shetland largely midge free (unlike most of Scotland), they add a considerable wind-chill factor, and when combined with horizontal rain you can be both wet and cold within minutes. Even more so than in mainland Scotland, the weather can change in moments and the entire landscape transformed from bleakness to loveliness by the presence of the sun. Locals refer to a calm day as 'a day between weathers'. Top temperatures in the summer are unlikely to go over 18C (64F), and while the wind can make this feel cooler, note that it is still perfectly possible to get sunburn.
At this northerly latitude there is a marked difference in daylight hours between summer and winter, even more so than in the rest of Scotland. During December there is little more than six hours of daylight (and on a dreary day it can seem as though it never truly gets light), during June on the other hand it hardly gets dark, and the brief twilight between sunset and sunrise is locally known as the 'Simmer Dim'. Midnight games of golf are possible.
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Shetland Islands Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.