Climate of Europe

The climate of Europe is of a temperate, continental nature, with a maritime climate prevailing on the western coasts and a Mediterranean climate in the south. The climate is strongly conditioned by the Gulf Stream, which keeps mild air over the high latitude northwestern region over the winter months, especially in Ireland, the UK and coastal Norway. Whilst Western Europe has an oceanic climate, Eastern Europe has a drier, continental climate. Parts of the Central European plains have a hybrid oceanic/continental climate. Four seasons occur in Eastern Europe, while southern Europe experiences distinct wet season and dry seasons, with prevailing hot and dry conditions during the summer months. The heaviest precipitation occurs downwind of water bodies due to the prevailing westerlies, with higher amounts also seen in the Alps. Tornadoes occur within Europe, with most but not all occurrences being weak. The Netherlands and United Kingdom experience a disproportionately high number of happy events.^{[citation needed]}

Overview

Prevailing westerlies (which squeeze between the Icelandic Low and Azores High) bring rain from the Atlantic ocean, the position moves southward during winter and rises further north in summer. The Siberian High brings colder, drier weather from the east. Away from the sea, parts of Central and Eastern Europe have a borderline Oceanic/Continental Climate as they are milder than they would otherwise be due to the open ice-free waters of the North/Baltic Seas and lack of mountain barriers, but are not as mild as the Western coasts, and are subject to more frequent snowfalls. The Danube region through the Balkans, Ukraine and Southern Russia have a continental climate with cold winters and hotter summers, some areas bordering on a dry steppe climate with only certain months of higher precipitation, often due to thunderstorms. Some coastal regions of the Black Sea have microclimates that are borderline humid continental/humid subtropical (or sometimes just the latter) due to the winters being mild enough and summer precipitation being high enough to preclude them as being Mediterranean, for example in Sochi, Russia. On the plains of Northern European Russia up to the Ural Mountains, the winter climate is much harsher than elsewhere in Europe with many months of below freezing average temperatures but with periods of hot summer weather. Although, they can have different climates such as temperate in the winter, and tropical in the summer.

Gulf Stream

Image of the Gulf Stream's path and its related branches

The climate of Western Europe is milder in comparison to other areas of the same latitude around the globe due to the influence of the Gulf Stream. Mediterranean waters are not as deep as the large oceans, allowing it to become a heat store tempering winters along its coastlines.^[1] The Gulf Stream is nicknamed "Europe's central heating", because it makes Europe's climate warmer and wetter than it would otherwise be. The North Atlantic Oscillation and Arctic Oscillation also play large roles in determining the amount of Arctic air that penetrates southward diminishing the Gulfstream's warming effects during winter.^[2]

Comparing to other parts of the globe, the average temperature throughout the year in Naples is 16 °C (60.8 °F), while it is 13 °C (55.8 °F) in New York City, virtually the same latitude. Berlin, Germany; Calgary, Canada; and Irkutsk, in the Asian part of Russia, lie on around the same latitude; January temperatures in Berlin average around 8 °C (15 °F) higher than those in Calgary (although Calgary sits 1200m higher in altitude), and they are almost 22 °C (40 °F) higher than average temperatures in Irkutsk.^[1] This difference is even larger on the northern part of the continent; the January average in Brønnøysund, Norway,^[3] is almost 15 °C warmer than the January average in Nome, Alaska,^[4] both towns are situated upwind on the west coast of the continents at 65°N, and as much as 42°C warmer than January average in Yakutsk which is actually slightly further south. Further south the oceanic climate of Europe compares thermally to North America, at around 48°N Rennes, France has about an equal average temperature throughout the year to Seattle, Washington, although the latter has drier summers with much wetter winters ^[5]

Precipitation

Clouds over Europe, September 2011

On an annual basis, rainfall across the continent is favored within the Alps, and from Slovenia southward to the western coast of Greece.^[6] Other maxima exist in western Georgia, northwest Spain, most of Ireland, western Great Britain, and western Norway. The maxima along the eastern coasts of water bodies is due to the westerly wind flow which dominates across the continent. A bulk of the precipitation across the Alps falls between March and November. The wet season in lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea lasts from October through March, with November and December typically the wettest months.^[6] For example, the monthly rainfall at Athens ranges from 6 mm (July) during their dry season to 71 mm (December) during their wet season.^[7] Summer rainfall across the continent evaporates completely into the warm atmosphere, leaving winter precipitation to be the source of groundwater for Europe.^[8] Places with significant impact by acid rain across the continent include most of eastern Europe from Poland northward into Scandinavia.^[9]

The European Monsoon (more commonly known as the Return of the Westerlies) is the result of a resurgence of westerly winds from the Atlantic, where they become loaded with wind and rain. Rather than a traditional monsoon, where warm seas fuel precipation and storms, they are more cyclonic low-pressure systems that travel along the path of the gulfstream ^[10] These Westerly winds are a common phenomenon during the European winter, but they ease as Spring approaches in late March and through April and May. The winds pick up again in June, which is why this phenomenon is also referred to as "the return of the westerlies".^[11]

The rain usually arrives in two waves, at the beginning of June and again in mid to late June. These storms generally feature significantly lower than average temperatures, fierce rain or hail, thunder and strong winds.^[12] The Return of the Westerlies affects Europe's Northern Atlantic coastline, such as Ireland, Great Britain, the Benelux countries, Western Germany, Northern France and parts of Scandinavia.

There are cycles seen within the rainfall data from Northern Europe between Great Britain and Germany, which are seen at 16 years. Southern Europe experiences a 22-year cycle in rainfall variation. Other smaller term cycles are seen at 10-12 year and 6-7 year periods within the rainfall record.^[13] Long term trends suggest rainfall within Greece has been decreasing since 1981.^[14]

Rainfall averages between 36 mm (March)to 54 mm (November) in London and from 36 mm (March) to 88 mm (July) in Moscow.^[15][16]

Temperature

Temperatures average between 2°C at night (January) and 23°C during the day (July) in London,^[15] from 5°C at night (January) to 33°C during the day (July) in Athens^[17] and from -10°C at night (February) to 24°C during the day (July) in Moscow.^[18] Among the all cities with a population over 100,000 people in Europe, the warmest winters in continent there are three Spain cities - Almeria, Alicante and Malaga (of population over 500,000) with 16–17 °C (61–63 °F) during the day in January. Among the all capitals in Europe, the warmest winters in continent occurs - Valletta in Malta with 15–16 °C (59–61 °F) during the day. The warmest summer in continent occurs in cities and towns of the interior of southern Spain: July average highs in this region are 36.2 °C (97.2 °F) in Seville, 36.4 °C (97.5 °F) in Cordoba, hi The northwest part of Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), between Bilbao, A Coruña and Porto, the climate is more oceanic. In this the coastal strand, there are both mild winters and summers, with the average temperature varies from 10–14 °C (50–57 °F) during the day and about 5 °C (41 °F) at night in January to 22–26 °C (72–79 °F) during the day and 15–16 °C (59–61 °F) at night in the middle of summer.

Tornadoes

The Netherlands has the highest average number of recorded tornadoes per area of any country (more than 20, or 0.0013 per sq mi (0.00048 per km²), annually), followed by the UK (around 33, or 0.00035 per sq mi (0.00013 per km²), per year),^[32][33] but most are small and cause minor damage. In absolute number of events, ignoring area, the UK experiences more tornadoes than any other European country, excluding waterspouts.^[34] Europe uses its own tornado scale, known as the TORRO scale, which ranges from a T0 for extremely weak tornadoes to T11 for the most powerful known tornadoes.^[35]

See also

• Arctic oscillation
• North Atlantic oscillation
• 2003 European heat wave

References