Weather in Europe – A Bird’s Eye view

Ural Mountains, Ural River, Caspian Sea, and the Caucasus Mountains divide Europe from Asia.

In fact Europe contains the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia. In the north of Europe lies the Arctic Ocean and to the west is the Atlantic Ocean.

Towards the south of Europe is the Mediterranean Sea and to the South east is the Black Sea. In essence the continent is surrounded by water bodies all around.

The continent has an area of 10,180,000 square kilometers and there are around 50 states in the continent.

It is also the third most populous continent after Asia and Africa with a population of around 731 million.

Climatic conditions vary across the continent largely basing on the land relief. It has great variations with relatively small areas covered by each variation.

The southern parts of the continent are hilly and full of plateaus while the northern part is mostly covered with plain areas.

The weather therefore is vastly different in these two parts.

The southern part, though hilly, is nearer to the equator and is comparatively warmer while the northern part nearer to the tropic is cooler in comparison.

You can broadly classify the climatic conditions in the continent of Europe as follows: -

1. Tundra climatic zones.
2. Alpine Tundra climatic zones.
3. Taiga climatic zone.
4. Mountain forest climatic zone.
5. Temperate broadleaf forest climatic zone.
6. Mediterranean forest climatic zones.
7. Temperate steppe climatic zones.
8. Dry steppe climatic zones.

The above descriptions are broad in nature. There are several sub regions as well like the Iberian Peninsula and Italian Peninsula those have their own peculiar climatic conditions.

Similarly the central Europe contains many plateaus, river valleys, as well as basins that make their climatic conditions completely different.

Above all the weather in Britain and Ireland are special cases. Surrounded from all sides by water bodies their climate is naturally different from those of many other parts in Europe.

On the other hand there are land locked countries having altogether different temperate conditions.

Climate in Europe however is milder in comparison to many other areas that lie in the same latitude around the globe. This happens due to the influence of Gulf Stream that is nicknamed as the “Central heating of Europe”.

It helps in making the climate of Europe warmer. It carries warm water to Europe and at the same time warms up the wind that blows across the continent coming from the Atlantic Ocean.

Average temperatures through the year remain around 16 degree Celsius or around 60.8 degree Fahrenheit. In contrast the temperature rests around 12 degree Celsius only at New York City located on the same latitude.

Other cities that lie on the same latitude are Berlin, Calgary, and Irkustk in Germany, Canada, and Asia respectively. They have the same mean temperature as average in Europe.

Even the January temperature in Berlin at 8 degree Celsius is higher than Canada and it is nearly 22 degree Celsius higher than Calgary, in the Asian part of Russia.