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Shows the difference latitude makes. We don't have anywhere with year round snow cover in AZ despite our highest point being over 12,600ft. Though our timberline is around 11,500ft and up there, there is usually at least 6-7 months of snow cover
Precipitation may make a difference too. If you had 50' of snow every winter, it might last longer. By the time you get to 10,000 feet around here you have glaciers, though they have shrunk quite a bit in the last 50 years.
That year even the Swedish western and southern coast, Gotland, and Öland had a two and a half month continuous snow cover, and they are definitely oceanic. Single freak years with permanent snow cover doesn't all of a sudden make a place have "permanent snow cover" on average. Stockholm is guaranteed to see snow, and they're pretty much guaranteed to see snow laying around for 2 weeks at a time, at least once a year, but a whole month of continuous snow cover isn't the norm even though it happens from some years.
Location: João Pessoa,Brazil(The easternmost point of Americas)
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Here on South America,the permanent snowcover depends most of the altitude since even on Tierra del Fuego there arent any place at sea level with it.
For example at 30S,on average it is at 3500m,40S around 1200-1500m and 55S it is around 500m.
The difference from Northern Hemisphere is that the snowcover on elevated areas of Southern Hemisphere last longer and heavy snowfall can happen any time of year.
Stockholm is a continental climate with oceanic influences imo. I really cannot accept it being in the same climate classification as Leeds. Doesn't Stockholm have something like 100 days of snow cover on average? That's a lot.
Stockholm is a continental climate with oceanic influences imo. I really cannot accept it being in the same climate classification as Leeds. Doesn't Stockholm have something like 100 days of snow cover on average? That's a lot.
Exactly. The -3C isotherm should be thrown into the rubbish bin. (Turku's mean temp this winter was -1.6C and while we had no permanent snow pack, we had a lot of days with snow lying).
Stockholm might not be on the permanent snowline, but it's not an oceanic climate either, that's for sure.
Stockholm is a continental climate with oceanic influences imo. I really cannot accept it being in the same climate classification as Leeds. Doesn't Stockholm have something like 100 days of snow cover on average? That's a lot.
I call it oceanic simply because the seasonal range is pretty low for the latitude. I think it's odd to completely discount something as oceanic because it gets snow or lots of snow cover....
I do think it has continental influence, but I think the oceanic influence is more pronounced.
I think to call a place at nearly 60 N with only like a 20 C seasonal range full blown "continental" is a bit misguided....
Kind of how I would Longyearbyen an oceanic climate as well, just a very high latitude one. If there were a "polar oceanic" subtype I think Longyearbyen would be perfect. And I would say Stockholm is "subpolar oceanic" or "cold oceanic".
I imagine that "percentage of the time below 0C" is probably more relevant than the mean temperature (although it is harder to calculate). You could also penalise periods of significant winter warmth, dryness and sunshine.
So for instance, there are places in Montana which have quite low mean winter temperatures, yet the occasional warm Chinook winds often inhibit the formation of long-lasting snowpacks. However, further west in the Cascades, places with warmer mean winter temperatures can see many months of reliable snow, mainly due to higher precipitation and less frequent warm periods.
I imagine that "percentage of the time below 0C" is probably more relevant than the mean temperature (although it is harder to calculate). You could also penalise periods of significant winter warmth, dryness and sunshine.
So for instance, there are places in Montana which have quite low mean winter temperatures, yet the occasional warm Chinook winds often inhibit the formation of long-lasting snowpacks. However, further west in the Cascades, places with warmer mean winter temperatures can see many months of reliable snow, mainly due to higher precipitation and less frequent warm periods.
This has made me ponder similar questions - what location has the warmest month where a snowpack is nearly certain? Similarly, what was the record high temperature of a day that had snow on the ground at least some point during that day?
Mt Hood in July seems a good contender, given its permanent snow with relatively warm summers, although it's possible that the winner is somewhere a little warmer where snow is assured of surviving into summer, but not the whole summer.
For the latter question, it seems very likely to be a place in/near the Rockies, probably in spring, when a cold snap was immediately followed by a heat wave (or vice versa).
If we get to count ice on the ground (i.e. glaciers), I wonder if Franz Josef Glacier (at 300m asl) in New Zealand might win in some categories. I'd guess that its terminus probably has the mildest winter temperatures of any glacier (with snow being pretty rare), but it's also probably up there in summer means, too (though not summer maximums), primarily due to its low altitude.
Last edited by Nichle; 10-03-2017 at 06:31 PM..
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