Meteorologists get a lot of grief when they get the forecast wrong, so it must be nice to predict the weather for Lítla Dímun: It's going to be cloudy. Of course, no one actually lives on the smallest of Denmark's eighteen Faroe Islands, unless you count the sheep.
Occasionally, farmers make the trip out to tend to those ovine inhabitants, taking strays back with them to the other, inhabited islands of the North Atlantic archipelago. When they do come to visit, the farmers almost always encounter the same phenomenon: a single lenticular cloud hanging over the island like a hat. The cloud is the same as the kind normally seen on mountain peaks. Lenticular clouds occur when air passes over a land mass and cools enough to form condensation. As with any such cloud, the one that hangs over Lítla Dímun keeps reforming as new air rises and condensation recurs.
Sightseers are usually fine taking a look from a distance, but visitors are welcome to Lítla Dímun. The only catch is that you have to climb up the steep cliffs that surround the base of the island by way of ropes left behind by farmers.
A brief visit to the Faroe Islands:
- About half of the islands' energy comes from renewable sources; the goal is to reach 100 percent by the year 2030.
- There are approximately 70,000 sheep in the Faroe Islands, compared with a population of 50,000 people.
- Nowhere in the Faroe Islands is farther than 3 miles (5k) from the ocean.