Iceland Live — situation brief

Assembled Sun, 20 Sept 2026, 17:38:06 (UTC). Covers the last 24 hours, from 19 Sep, 17:38 to 20 Sep, 17:38.

Open the live map

This is an automatically assembled summary of published data, produced at the time shown above. It is not an official warning, not a forecast, and not a hazard assessment.

Official status for Iceland is published by the Icelandic Meteorological Office. Where this document relays it, it is marked as theirs and reproduced in their wording. Everything else here is arithmetic over their published catalogue, and says which arithmetic.

For any decision that matters, read IMO's own pages rather than this one.

Summary

58 earthquakes have been recorded during the last 24 hours. Activity is spread across several areas, led by Kleifarvatn and Bárðarbunga. The largest event was M 1.8 near Reykjaneshryggur at 06:03.

Official warnings

Warnings currently in force, relayed from the Icelandic Meteorological Office in their own wording. Every kind is listed, not only the geological ones: most Icelandic warnings are about weather, and those are the ones that shut roads.

IMO has no warnings in force.

Volcanic systems above normal

Volcanic systems IMO currently places above their normal state, with IMO's own aviation colour code and alert level. Several Icelandic systems hold at yellow for months or years at a time, so a system appearing here is not by itself a change.

Observations

Findings that met their thresholds during this window. Each states the numbers behind it and the method that produced it, so the arithmetic can be checked rather than taken on trust. A quiet period produces none, and none of these is a hazard assessment.

Nothing in this window met the thresholds.

Where the activity was

Events during the last 24 hours by IMO seismic region, busiest first. A rate is compared with that region's own past year, because forty events a day means one thing on the Reykjanes Ridge and another under a volcano that rarely moves.

Dispersal simulations

Dispersal simulations IMO is currently publishing. These model eruptions that are not happening: IMO produces them several times a day for selected volcanoes so that the answer already exists if one ever starts. A column height is an input the model was given — a question, never a measurement — and the published record does not distinguish a routine run from one produced for a real event.