Hi, from Oslo, Norway

[Leifb78]

Hi everybody,
just gotten back into diving after a bit of a break. Started diving in 1996 with a PADI OW cert. Slowly progressed through the PADI system untill I certified as a PADI instructor.
Burnt myself out on diving by working to much as an instructor and took a long break from the hobby. Have recently returned to diving due to a close friend picking up the hobby and am now renewing my instructor cert.
90% of my diving has been in Norway, with drysuit, steel tanks and at times, cold water, but I love it. So glad to be back.

 

[NYCNaiad]

Welcome to Scubaboard & back to diving!

 

[Seaweed Doc]

Welcome back! And out of curiosity, when is the water NOT cold in Norway? Is there a summer bump in temperature associated with the Gulf Stream?

 

[Leifb78]

Welcome back! And out of curiosity, when is the water NOT cold in Norway? Is there a summer bump in temperature associated with the Gulf Stream?

Hi, in the summer the water near the surface get warmer we had over 22 degrees C for most of the period from May to september, which is nice but at depth it is an even temp down to 4 degrees C all year round.
The temprature in winter can be so that coming up to safetystups/decostops the water is colder than at depth, since water is at its densest at about 4 degrees C, but all part of the fun and experience. Get some cool thermoclines as well
We normally train in drysuits with steel tanks (10L 300 bar) so its not that bad. Wetsuit diving in Norway is not that common

 

[Storker]

when is the water NOT cold in Norway? Is there a summer bump in temperature associated with the Gulf Stream?

It depends a lot on where you are, the coastline is pretty long. As @Leifb78 says, he can get rather nice temperatures in the summer. In my local waters, we might get some 18-20-ish degrees at the beaches, but it's seldom above 15-18 at rec depths. At the coast outside me, I've never seen warmer temps than 15-16-ish. Up north there are places where temps above 10-12-ish are about as common as hen's teeth. But with proper exposure protection it isn't a problem. The worst is actually the brain freeze you get as you jump in in the winter, before the water in your hood warms up.

But without the Gulf Stream, we'd be a lot colder. Oslo is roughly at the same latitude as Anchorage AK (some 60 degrees), and the northernmost tip is at about 71 degrees north. Which is somewhere between Prudhoe Bay AK and Utqiagvik AK, latitude-wise.

 

[Seaweed Doc]

Thanks for the replies! We run from about 7-12 degrees in Seattle most years, with extremes of 4-14 degrees. I would never have guessed it got as warm in the summer as you've mentioned.

 

[Leifb78]

Yes in the southg of Norway the water gets surprisingly warm in summer. The fun part of that is the temprature change from 20-22 degrees C to 4 degrees C and back on a dive can make hanging around on the surface a warm affair at times as one is often dressed in an exposure suit for the coldest part of the dive

 

[Seaweed Doc]

We see those extremes diving in lakes where I live. The bottom is always 4 degrees, but the surface can be warm.