Post by Ella.
Time for a little googling about weather in Bergen. It rains all the time. 98 inches (2490 mm) per year. The driest month, May (yay!), gets 4.3 inches. The wettest is December coming in at 11.4 inches – which is more than New Mexico gets in a year.
During the summer, even when it’s not raining and the skies are clear, the highs are in the low 60’s, rarely above 68°F. Although in recent years, temperatures have been much higher (in the 80’s) for short periods of time.
Yesterday, I started with a light down jacket over a light hoodie. By early afternoon, I was carrying the jacket. I could have taken off the hoodie also but didn’t want to carry it. The local folk had been in T-shirts and shorts all day. The high was 63, which, at home on a sunny day, would be a T-shirt and sweatpants in the garden kind of day.
Bergen joke ( posted by Henry here in a comment): a tourist is visiting Bergen and it has rained continuously for days. He stops a little boy and asks “does it always rain in Bergen?” The little boy replies: “I don’t know, I’m only seven.”
Variation that Google told me: there’s a young boy in Bergen sitting on the curb crying. A grown-up asks him what’s wrong and he says, “it’s raining and cold!” The grown-up says, “but the rain always stops, doesn’t it?” The child replies, “I don’t know, I’m only twelve!”
When I was a student at Johns Hopkins one winter we had a big snowstorm. The administration decided to pay students to shovel snow. Those of us who took them up on the offer (not including me) were all bundled up… all except a Norwegian exchange student who was out there in a T-shirt and shorts.