Iceland 
In numbers.
190m
Height
Jun
Sep
Best months
331m
Elevation
The water at Glymur, month by month
It roars from November to May.
The fullest months: from November to May.
- 97%Jan
- 100%Feb
- 95%Mar
- 98%Apr
- 76%May
- 53%Jun
- 41%Jul
- 44%Aug
- 74%Sep
- 72%Oct
- 76%Nov
- 94%Dec
Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: June and September.
Estimate from rain, snowmelt and evaporation month by month (NASA POWER, 1991–2020) around the falls. Dams upstream can change the real flow.
Getting there.
- Parking 2,160 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Reykjavík Domestic Airport (RKV)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 44 km in a straight lineCar hire at RKV airport (Reykjavík)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- June and Septemberbest months to go (estimate)
Plan your visit
Stay, explore and get there
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
How big is it?
How big it really is.
Height of the drop from Wikidata. Buildings and the person are drawn at the same scale.
Seen from the sky.
8 × 8 km of cloud-free satellite image, with what OpenStreetMap knows around the falls.
N
2 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 8 × 8 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
The line follows the river as mapped in OpenStreetMap; heights from the 30 m Copernicus model, which smooths narrow drops — the published height of the falls is the one above.
Around the falls the river drops 300 m in 3.6 km. Here the river runs about 22 m below the lower rim of its valley.
What is around.
- 5viewpointsGlymur and 4 more
- 1waymarked walking routesGlymur
- 1car parks
- —swimming spots
- —picnic sites
- —toilets
- 4information boards and visitor centres
- —bus stops within 1 km
- 4other named waterfalls within 4 kmStaur, Breiðifoss, Folaldafoss and 1 more
- 1caves
- —campsites
- —hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 km
- —restaurants and cafés within 3 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, up to 2 km around the falls (unless noted). A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Weather
The weather, month by month.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon °C | -2 | -1 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 12 | 14 | 12 | 8 | 3 | 0 | -1 |
| Night °C | -6 | -6 | -6 | -3 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 3 | -1 | -4 | -6 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 160 | 148 | 141 | 111 | 86 | 76 | 92 | 101 | 154 | 123 | 129 | 159 |
| Wet days | 20 | 19 | 20 | 17 | 16 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 20 | 18 | 18 | 20 |
| Sun h/day | 0.3 | 1.0 | 4.0 | 6.9 | 8.2 | 8.2 | 6.9 | 5.9 | 3.6 | 2.2 | 0.5 | 0.4 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 29 | 30 | 31 | 15 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 16 | 20 |
Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (331 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.
Photos
Through visitors' eyes.
Recent years
Wet years and dry years
Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A wet season above 100 % usually means a fuller waterfall.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 154% | 84% | 104% | 114% | 127% | 130% | 76% | 149% | 124% | 54% | 102% | 78% |
| 2021 | 67% | 52% | 117% | 94% | 49% | 130% | 103% | 94% | 138% | 103% | 151% | 69% |
| 2022 | 165% | 74% | 174% | 74% | 114% | 134% | 130% | 124% | 74% | 74% | 36% | 30% |
| 2023 | 89% | 164% | 29% | 72% | 254% | 165% | 23% | 75% | 84% | 106% | 57% | 80% |
| 2024 | 88% | 71% | 52% | 66% | 137% | 124% | 134% | 99% | 68% | 122% | 129% | 136% |
| 2025 | 93% | 121% | 138% | 62% | 106% | 121% | 127% | 92% | 90% | 109% | 32% | 75% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
Compare with the waterfalls nearby.
Glymur
Iceland
- 190 mHeight
- —Average flow
- Jun, SepBest months
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q38577) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Relief, river profile, 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Paths, viewpoints, parking | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
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