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I may say that the vegetation in the Pacific Northwest is adapted to dry season conditions, and the part of Western Oregon/Washington that is a temperate rainforest is not classified as Mediterranean, it has an Oceanic climate (and this is under Koeppen, not just Trewartha). The rest of the region does have a Mediterranean (Csb) climate, and that includes the cities of Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, which are decidedly not in a temperate rainforest. Don't confuse the differing portions of Western Oregon and Washington.
I however must add that the common notion about the Pacific Northwest's climate is absurd, as the very nature of Mediterranean climates is for the summer to be dry with warm/hot conditions and for the winter or rest of the year to have oceanic-type weather (mild/cool and rain-dominated). The Pacific Northwest (well, the Seattle/Portland/Vancouver portion) is very different from actual oceanic climates. If it's otherwise like an oceanic climate but has a summer dry season, it's Mediterranean. By definition an oceanic climate has no dry season, but Seattle and Portland do have a dry season.
Just because Seattle and Portland have oceanic weather much of the year doesn't mean it's oceanic or not Mediterranean - that's precisely the point of classifying it as Csb instead of Cfb .
I am well aware of all of this. One thing that bothers me though is that the overall weather patterns and vegetation types are not at all similar to places with "typical" mediterranean climates. Some people have mentioned San Fransisco and Los Angeles. These areas tend to be rather dry, brown, and some parts of them are even classified as semi-arid. They (and other mediterranean areas) also have quite a large amount of scrubland with low-growing trees and scrappy, emaciated-looking bushes:
Ah the Csb/Cfb debate for vancouver, portland, seattle, etc...
As far as averages go, these cities are all Csb, technically. The S designates dry summer so they are definitely not Cfb.
From wikipedia:
Quote:
The second letter indicates the precipitation pattern: "s" represents dry summers: first, Köppen has defined a dry month as a month with less than one-third that of the wettest winter month, and with less than 30 mm of precipitations in a summer month. Some, however, use a 40 mm level.
The Vancouver airport is Csb but Canada Place is wet enough in the summer to be considered Cfb (>40mm in driest months...driest month is still less than a third of the wettest though).
I am well aware of all of this. One thing that bothers me though is that the overall weather patterns and vegetation types are not at all similar to places with "typical" mediterranean climates. Some people have mentioned San Fransisco and Los Angeles. These areas tend to be rather dry, brown, and some parts of them are even classified as semi-arid. They (and other mediterranean areas) also have quite a large amount of scrubland with low-growing trees and scrappy, emaciated-looking bushes
The Trewartha system is a modified version of Koeppen which makes a larger distinction between the climates of southern California and the Pacific Northwest. It also tries to correct the anomaly of areas such as southern New England being in the same Cfa category as most of Florida.
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