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Skyggnið hér er breytilegt, ýmist gott eða slæmt.

Skyggnið hér er breytilegt, ýmist gott eða slæmt.
The visibility here is variable, sometimes good and sometimes bad.
From Lesson 485:Alternating conjunctions (ýmist ... eða)·Icelandic

Questions & Answers about Skyggnið hér er breytilegt, ýmist gott eða slæmt.

Why does the translation say 'and sometimes' when eða usually means 'or'?
The phrase ýmist ... eða is a set pairing that translates to 'sometimes [this] and sometimes [that]', or 'alternately [A] and [B]'. Even though eða on its own means 'or', this specific grammatical structure describes a continuous fluctuation between two states rather than forcing a single choice.
Could I just say stundum gott og stundum slæmt instead of using ýmist ... eða?
Yes, that is grammatically correct and means roughly the same thing. However, ýmist ... eða specifically emphasizes the back-and-forth, alternating nature of the conditions. This makes it a much more natural and elegant choice when describing something explicitly stated as breytilegt (variable).
Why do the adjectives breytilegt, gott, and slæmt all end in -t?
They are all describing the noun skyggnið (the visibility). Because skyggni is a neuter noun, any adjective modifying it must take the neuter singular ending, which is typically -t.
Would the sentence structure change if I removed the word breytilegt?
If you remove breytilegt, the phrase ýmist gott eða slæmt becomes the main description rather than an explanatory add-on. You would simply drop the comma and write Skyggnið hér er ýmist gott eða slæmt to mean 'The visibility here is sometimes good and sometimes bad'.

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