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The fact that northern lapland is dominanted by dwarf birches rather than conifers was actually one of the biggest surprises to me when i made a visit up there some time ago. Didnt see a single conifer in kiruna for example.
Well, in fact lapland is only dominated by (dwarf) birches at locations, which have too cold summer temperatures for other trees. The fact that no conifers grow in Kiruna is caused by Kirunas altitude at above 500 m. At lower altitudes (e.g. Gällivare or Jokkmokk) you will find other trees, which replace the (dwarf) birches, which are mainly dominant between 400-800 meters (depending on the latitude and how close to the atlantic ocean a place is).
This is a Mountain Birch (Betula pubescens subsp. czerepanovii):
This is a Dwarf Birch (Betula nana)
The Mountain Birch lives up to 980 meters, Dwarf Birch to 1050m, and the Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) up to 1000m. The Dwarf Birch lives also more south, but only on marshy and wet soils, and here in Southern Finland it doesn't grow at all, as the soil is too clayed. South of the Baltic it doesn't grow at all, as the climate becomes too warm.
The Mountain Birch lives only in high elevation (seen in the map below), and south and lower elevations it is immediately replaced by the Betula pendula and Betulapubescens.
Just for clarification so we are all talking about the same tree.
It seems that southern Qinghai is getting snowstorms and blizzards in early May. They are one of the colder places in China, but even for them it's somewhat unusual. Meanwhile, Seattle reached 86F yesterday, which is very hot for this time of the year. Record highs were set in many locations in Western Canada and the PacNW. Temperatures will cool down to 80F today and eventually to 60's by the weekend with showers in the forecast. All of this is being caused by the flow around a big cut-off low that's hanging around California. North of the low the winds are blowing east from the interior, causing hot weather. Around the low itself, there is onshore flow that is aiding cooler than normal conditions across southern California and the Southwest.
So, we have here a neat example of how air flows around a cut-off low. On one side temperatures are 10-20F above normal due to east winds (offshore), and on the other side temperatures are 5-15F below normal due to west winds (onshore). Isn't that cool? Below is today's departures from normal for the U.S. You can see the cool weather that's being caused by the other cut-off low in the Southeast, as well as the flow around that which is causing warm weather for New England. There are areas of warm and cool weather relative to normal but there's nothing eye-popping here. The temperatures across most of the country should be rather typical today.
What's a weather enthusiast to do when the weather is boring like this? Well, try to hunt for the next big weather event, which will likely be a cool spell about a week from now. In the meantime, our bored weather enthusiast will have to hunt elsewhere in the world for interesting weather .
and as Patricius Maximus has shown above below average temps will continue today here in florida with miami 5f below normal yesterday and 4f below normal for today(not that i'm complaining). temps will return to normal on thursday.
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