One shattered bus stop window, one ashtray in scattered pieces, one frozen person. The sum of a night’s wind, divided by the ten-minute walk between work and home. Perhaps not that severe, but I’ll call it a wave of devastation nonetheless.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010, not forecast as a windy one. Down in the five and six m/s ranges for Reykjavík. Still a countrywide high of 28.5 m/s creeps into class 11, violent storm, on the Beaufort scale.

Brief snowfall and the lights of nighttime traffic conspire with the wind. Choreographing a snow snakes dance up Hverfisgata on Sunday night.

Off the ground, things intensify. The highest recorded surface wind was 133 m/s on Barrow Island, Australia in 1996; ten meters up and the record jumps to 141 m/s, Moore, Olklahoma, 1999. On the third floor, five meters up, facing the sea, the house shakes to the wailing spirits of Hel. Bigby Whittington, biggest cat in the house, can’t sleep, he shakes with fear.

Cyclones! Volcanoes and earthquakes are not enough; Iceland throws cyclones in the mix as well. From the South, the West, even Greenland, everyone from everywhere is pushing these beasts our way. Admittedly the cyclones do not land, but their presence in the seas around accounts for Iceland’s ever present wind.

I remember walking out to the northern Old Harbor lighthouse. A hundred yard dash along a narrow spur, don’t look down or the sea will get you. Don’t look up or the wind will take you. Out and exposed at the bright yellow beacon, I just clung on. Then hurried back to solid ground.

I remember walking in from west-town, fist-fighting the wind. Of course it makes no difference, but it feels good to punch back a little.

At Tuesday’s conditions wind chill is minimal, but even that entails a drop of 2 degrees C in perceived temperature. Factor in today’s high at freezing point and it plunges down to -11 degrees of chill.

It’s not the cold that gets you, I tell people, it’s the wind. Your coat need not be thick or even warm, so much as it must be impermeable. Impervious, uncompromised. Think of it as your armour, your fort, your only resort.

But leave one crack open, let one breath in and that’s it. You’re done for.

Simon Barker – frigno@gmail.com