Ragnar Heiðar Þrastarson's Avatar

Ragnar Heiðar Þrastarson

@ragnarheidar

Mapmaker, mountaineer and GIS Coordinator of the Icelandic Met Office. Open Source Geospatial all the way! Currently sponsoring: QGIS | OSGeo | Even Rouault

479
Followers
225
Following
51
Posts
10.09.2023
Joined
Posts Following

Latest posts by Ragnar Heiðar Þrastarson @ragnarheidar

Preview
Avalanche | Forecast The Icelandic Meteorological Office publishes information on weather forecasts, severe weather warnings and weather observations for the public and emergency responders.

Check out public beta:
gottvedur.is/snjoflod/en/

17.12.2025 23:31 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Post image Post image Post image Post image

Another milestone for us at Icelandic Met Office 🎉

This week we launched a new site with #avalanche forecasts/conditions, incl. recent avalanches. A major update was required in the background, migrating to #Postgres, building APIs and of course the website handled by our friends at Origo & Metall.

17.12.2025 23:15 👍 13 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0

Every 3 hrs. we produce 219 tile-sets. This makes up a 3-day forecast with wind, temperature and precipitation and deliver that to our users. Then we rinse and repeat.

This pipeline uses @maptiler.bsky.social Engine + Upload API + Cloud + SDK JS with Weather+ with great success and stability.

14.12.2025 10:56 👍 5 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
Post image Post image Post image Post image

November is my favorite time to look at #Sentinel2 images of Iceland. All the long shadows draw out the landscape is we are just about to hit the dark months in the visual spectrum acquisitions.

#iceland #glacier #remotesensing #copernicus

14.11.2025 17:05 👍 7 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1

Had a great time with MapTiler team at Connect 2025!

Truly inspiring to see what is being built and delivered. Also great to get a chance to give positive feedback from us at The Icelandic Met Office

21.10.2025 19:58 👍 5 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

Very excited to be part of MapTiler Connect 2025 🤩

We at The Icelandic Met Office together with our friends at Origo have been busy building lots of maps with MapTiler 🗺️

Registration is open for online attendance ✔️

03.10.2025 17:28 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Video thumbnail

Before and after #flood
A pair of #Sentinel2 satellite images acquired on the 20th of August and 8th of September showing the lake where a glacial outburst flood aka #GLOF aka #Jökulhlaup occurred at the margin of #Langjökull glacier.
Check previous post for a short video from the field.

13.09.2025 15:58 👍 7 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Video thumbnail

Throughout #Iceland the Icelandic Met Office operates small web cameras. These are co-located with other equipment like #GNSS and #Seismic stations. They are our eyes in the field. Some capture stunning #nofilter 24h time-lapse like this one looking West towards our old friend #Eyjafjallajokull

05.09.2025 19:42 👍 8 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

A nice #Landsat brightness temperature image from last night (ascending path). Data clipped to a union of all 9 lava outlines with the latest one on the right. Calculated from band 10 (level 1). Hotspots by the main crater and the thickest part of the lava field.

#NASA #USGS #Svartsengi #eruption

01.09.2025 21:34 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 1
Hafrafellslón - jökulhlaup í ágúst 2025
Hafrafellslón - jökulhlaup í ágúst 2025 YouTube video by Ragnar Heiðar Þrastarson

A few days ago, we had a glacial outburst flood AKA Jökulhlaup. The water originated from an ice dammed lake by Langjökull glacier. The flood did not cause any issues downstream, but its mechanics are interesting since water flows both beneath and on top of the glacier.
A short vid from the field 👇

24.08.2025 11:56 👍 4 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
The most significant May heatwave ever recorded in Iceland | News | Icelandic Meteorological office

Icelandic Met Office: en.vedur.is/about-imo/ne...

29.05.2025 22:05 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Video thumbnail

In May #Iceland was hit by a significant #heatwave

Several stations exceeded 20°C for 10 consecutive days 🔥

New record for maximum May temperature was set on the 15th, 26.6°C 🌡️

This is #EUMETSAT #MTG satellite images for those 10 days at 10 min interval (geo color image) 🛰️

More info in comment👇🏻

29.05.2025 22:04 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Post image

Natural color image for the same scenes (bands 2, 3 and 4). Note the clouds/fog and how they affect the brightness temperature.

20.05.2025 14:33 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Post image Post image Post image Post image

Ascending orbits for visual spectrum #satellite images are usually not of interest for most (nighttime images). But for high latitudes in early summer, they can give great results 😍

This is #Landsat9 brightness temperature from band 10 at 22:30 UTC last night over #Iceland

Darker is colder 🌡️

20.05.2025 14:31 👍 8 🔁 4 💬 2 📌 1
Satellite image of Iceland

Satellite image of Iceland

More stunning acquisitions by #sentinel3 of #Iceland from today. The last couple of days have been exceptionally warm with many stations showing more than 20°C.

16.05.2025 15:27 👍 21 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 1
Post image Post image

This spectacular image of #Iceland was acquired by #Sentinel3 last Saturday. Perfect conditions to hike on top of #Snæfellsjökull glacier with some friends.

The latter part of winter was warm and light in terms of snowfall. The April mean temperature was also one of the hottest on record (4/180).

06.05.2025 14:07 👍 9 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Yes, these are all available from the Natural Science Institute of Iceland #GeoServer that will deliver these in many formats, including #KML

Go to gis.natt.is/geoserver/web
-> Layer Preview
-> Search for "goslok"
-> Hit KML link

Enjoy #free #open #data (CC BY 4.0)

04.04.2025 22:41 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 0
Post image

And there we have it. The 8th eruption from the #Svartsengi magma reservoir. By far the smallest one in terms of eruption time, area and volume.

Updated lava comparison map that also includes the #Fagradalsfjall eruptions.

#Iceland #QGIS #eruption

04.04.2025 21:25 👍 42 🔁 12 💬 3 📌 0
Post image Post image Post image Post image

On helicopter duty this morning 🌋

Collaborative effort 🤝

- Veðurstofa Íslands - Icelandic Met Office
- Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland
- Icelandic Coast Guard
- Iceland Civil Protection

#eruption #iceland #grindavik

01.04.2025 14:29 👍 74 🔁 17 💬 0 📌 2
Post image Post image Post image Post image

Hello Sentinel-1C 👋🏻🛰️

We have a new #Sentinle1 #SAR satellite delivering data. 1C has joined 1A in orbit and data is now available. Here is an IW mode image from this morning of #Iceland - VV polarization with logarithmic scaling (good for surface roughness). Images from #Copernicus Browser 🙏🏻😍

31.03.2025 13:25 👍 9 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1
Post image Post image Post image Post image

Some field work today with Civil Protection near #Grindavik and #Svartsengi

Looking at lava barriers and cleaning some webcam lens covers. Trying to be as prepared as possible for the next one 🌋

27.03.2025 20:04 👍 12 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
A globe map showing areas around Iceland

A globe map showing areas around Iceland

A map showing areas around Iceland

A map showing areas around Iceland

There are so many nice #QGIS plugins available. Check out Globe Builder. Need an orthographic projection view of your data? Done!

These are the different weather forecast models used by The Icelandic Met Office + subsets. IG and DINI are jointly operated with Denmark, Ireland and Netherlands 🤝🏻

21.03.2025 11:31 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

A nice von Kármán vortex street south of Jan Mayen today 😍🌀🌪️

Image acquired by #Sentinel3

👉🏻 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1...

11.03.2025 15:45 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Post image Post image Post image Post image

Hello Sentinel-2C 👋🛰️

Images from the recently launched @esa.int third #Sentinel2 satellite are now available. Some winter wonderland images from #Iceland acquired yesterday over the Northeastern highlands.

📸 Lake Mývatn
📸 Jöklusá á Fjöllum glacier river
📸 Askja volcanic caldera & lake

27.02.2025 11:45 👍 32 🔁 10 💬 0 📌 0
Video thumbnail

Very excited to announce early public beta of our new website at The Icelandic Met Office. @maptiler.bsky.social plays a key role in delivering maps for the new site. The weather charts use their Engine + Cloud + Weather SDK with the front-end handled by our friends at #Origo -> gottvedur.is

08.02.2025 15:45 👍 12 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
Öræfajökull

Öræfajökull

Eyjafjallajökull

Eyjafjallajökull

Post image Glacier cauldron

Glacier cauldron

During volcanic eruptions in #Iceland the scientific community relies on The Icelandic Coast Guard for support during the first phase of events. Their fleet includes a #Bombardier Dash-8 turboprop equipped with a side-looking radar + camera systems. Today we did some training looking at volcanoes.

22.01.2025 23:32 👍 9 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Hi #GISchat 📢

Tomorrow I´ll be leading a #QGIS course for my Met Office coworkers, first group out of 3!

Do you have any fun geometry generators for my course? I have a few practical examples but need some funny ones to show that there are no limits (except your imagination).

15.01.2025 19:16 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I should perhaps decrease my coffee consumption ☕
Here are the same images with the correct timestamp!

10.01.2025 11:32 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Magmatic intrusion at considerable depth beneath Grjótárvatn likely | News | Icelandic Meteorological office

More details in English on the recent #earthquake activity on the #Snæfellsnes peninsula. Data suggests magma intrusion at a considerable depth. No deformation has been observed.

en.vedur.is/about-imo/ne...

09.01.2025 16:01 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

EDIT: date on image should be 2025-01-08!

09.01.2025 15:53 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0