Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
these climate classifications lack any real substance. While there are discrete requisites to fall under one label or another, they are too broad to have any real meaning.
Are new york city and miami really interchangeable, climatically speaking?
Ugh.....I live in Tampa, which is at the bottom of the subtropical line. I don't see ANY similarities between the weathers of Tampa and Philadelphia. lol.
When I think of subtropical I kind of think of Tampa, Houston, New Orleans type of weather (pretty much all areas surrounding the Gulf of Mexico), going north up to Atlanta, Birmingham, Charleston - Those boundaries are still very hot most of the year but it gets chilly enough in the Winter time to prevent most tropical plants and animals from thriving there. I grew up near Miami, and even though Tampa is only about 160 miles north of Miami, there are differences in flora and fauna. Royal Palms for instance have to be transplanted to Tampa when they are grown to live, where as they can be grown from fruit in Miami. You can find parrots nesting in Miami. I have never seen a wild parrot in Tampa. lol.
I'm no weather man, so i'm not one to make calls on what is sub-tropical, but I wonder how they go about throwing both Louisville and Houston into the same category. Not only is temperature vastly different, but even precipitation patterns are different. West Coast cities I thought were categorized as Mediterranean? Subtropical places tend to have a very dry Winter and wet Summer, where as I thought the reverse is true for Mediterranean?
Miami is at the top of the tropical line. Even Miami's weather is significantly cooler when compared to, lets say, Salvador, Brazil. Miami's weather is probably more similar to Tampa's than Salvador's.
I think the problem is some scientist unfortunately used the term "subtropical" to describe a 4 season climate area like St Louis. It certainly stretches the word "tropical" in a different way than most people think of it.
I have heard Long Island and New York City called subtropical also. I have yet to see the palm trees and Flamingos in my area. What I do see is that for half our "subtropical year", its cold and we have no leaves on our trees. Perhaps we could have been called "subarctic" instead lol!
it can be misleading. Because typically when you think tropical, you think year round warm weather with tropical foilage. Not just a single season where the summers are hot with humidity. Alot of non-tropical cities can have that type of climate.
Just because a place gets a little snow that does not mean that its not subtropical. Overall St. Louis has some pretty hot and humid summers that last a pretty long time. It is only the beginning of June and St. Louis is already seeing temps in the mid to upper 80s with high humidity.
And as far as snow cover goes. This map below says it all. Does St. Louis get snow? Of course it does. But that doesn't mean its not borderline subtropical.
I can't believe how snowy New Mexico and Arizona are!
Well according to the Koppen climate classification, the qualification for subtropical is that the coldest month has an average temperature of either 0C or -3C. Internationally they use the =3C value since that is persistant frost line while many US sources use the 0C value. Cities like St. Louis and New York are in between those values making it vary depending on what is used. (would be interesting if updated climate charts show them trending towards 0C)
The reason US sources tend to use 0C as the value is due to the marine climate. They can call it a west coast climate if the border is 0C since it is exclusively on the west coasts of continents. But if it is -3C then Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard would also fall under marine climate. Also depending on climate change and how it changes averages, the -3C line might be the 0C line soon anyway, especially if they used the 1970's in climate data for current climate. (that was notoriously a cold decade)
Ugh.....I live in Tampa, which is at the bottom of the subtropical line. I don't see ANY similarities between the weathers of Tampa and Philadelphia. lol.
Well, except for the fact last year's average summer temperature in Philadelphia matched or exceeded Tampa's.
Does anyone know why Brownsville, TX and Miami dont share the same climate?
The Aw tropical climate of Miami means that it's essentially a frost free climate -- meaning that hard freezes and frosts almost never happen. (I think that Miami has had a few frosts and freezes in its history, but it's rare enough that the tropical vegetation can bounce back between frosts). This is because Miami's peninsular location surrounded by warm ocean currents puts it further out of risk of being exposed to cold continental air masses.
South Texas is certainly warm -- but Brownsville apparently had several days of hard freeze in February of this year. This was due to descending arctic continental air masses. That will not allow tropical vegetation to grow, and so that's why south Texas is considered a humid subtropical climate and not a tropical climate.
Of course the fact that Miami gets occasional frosts and freezes means that it's tropical designation is somewhat debatable. The Keys certainly fit the tropical designation without any question.
Miami is probably the only one with a true tropical climate
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
