Bergen folk will happily talk about the weather. They get a lot of it, and there are a lot of surprises. Meteorologists strive to predict what tomorrow's weather will be, and they hear about it when they get it wrong. Wet or dry - umbrellas are always nearby. Bergen is the first city in the world to install an "umbrella dispensing machine".
Bergen's weather is dominated by the air masses that come in from the west. The frequent low pressures from the ocean give much wind, as well as rapid changes in the weather. The low pressures bring with them a dense cloud cover and rain over large areas. The showers can be over quickly, but are often intense. Yet, they can just as well last a long time, also.
According to measurements at Fredriksberg, there are on average 232 days with rainfall each year, that is, days with over 0.1 mm precipitation. Then, there are 133 days without rain. This statistic feels wetter than it is in reality, however. During the course of a year, we can also expect that there will be on average 188 days with more than an hour of sunshine. Even though there may be a shower or two, the sun will shine in between. Recalculated according to this kind of Bergen-consolation, there are at least twenty days with sunshine every month from April to August - on average.
Because of the high mountains, the number of hours with sunshine daily will vary a bit between the different parts of the city, especially in winter. For the central areas of the city, the number of hours with sunshine on a clear day will vary from about 3 hours in January, to about 16 hours in June. Normally, there are least clouds from spring until the middle of June. Then, there is usually a change in the weather; more clouds and rain. Bergen nonetheless gets a good deal of summer sun, also. The mixture of rain and sun makes Bergen one of the most exuberant cities in the country. In winter, the air masses from the west give a relatively high temperature. Florida is the weather station in the country that has the next highest average rainfall; taking the year as a whole, 7.6 oC, just a tiny tenth of a degree behind Skudeneshavn.
Usually it is driest in April and May. Then, the amount of rainfall increases until around September, which normally is the wettest month of the year, with 283 mm. Annually, an average total rainfall of about 2250 mm will fall, measured at the Florida station. For the districts outside of the central areas, there can be a bit of variation in the amount of precipitation. This will give 10-15% higher values in the hillsides up toward Fløyfjellet and in toward Årstad, and 10-20% lower values out over Sandviken toward Eidsvågsneset. In Fana the annual amount of rainfall is somewhat less than in the city centre, while there is a sharp increase again up toward Gullfjellet, which normally gets over 3000 mm.
Because of relatively much wind and unsettled weather, the temperature conditions do not usually vary much. But, in still and clear weather, there can be large contrasts, especially in winter. Then, there may be an inversion: coldest down in the city, and relatively warmer higher up. On such days it can be 10 degrees below zero in the Minde–Hop-area, while the top of Ulriken might have just a few degrees below.
