Is the climate of the southeast really an inferior/not a true subtropical climate? (cold, Hawaii)

[Joe90]

Originally Posted by Space_League

They're not enough on their own and they don't say anything about how it's like to live in that climate. West Pam Beach, Florida is zones 10a/10b . That's a Koppen tropical rainforest climate January mean temp of 19.1 and annual temp of 24.3

San Francisco, CA is also zones 10a/10b. This is a Koppen "warm summer" Mediterranean climate with a jan mean of 11.2 and an annual mean of 14.3

The climates have almost nothing in common other than the USDA zones. That's why I'm saying to just use it as a filter on top of the established Koppen criteria for drawing the cutoff points in the SEUS.

I don't think that climate classifications such as Koppen can claim to provide an understanding of how it is to live in climates within the same groupings either. They may qualify such groupings, and they most certainly attempt to quantify them, but I don't see that they capture the essence of climates, unless talking in extremes (desert, polar etc).

An example would be me trying to relate to Edinburgh and Bergen as climates, and understanding how they would be to live in, just because they are fellow Cfb climates - despite being in the opposite hemisphere, May and September are both warmer here than May and September in Edinburgh and Bergen, which along with features such as distribution of sunshine, snowfall etc makes the climates of those cities as alien to me as climates like NYC or Moscow.

While my climate, along with Edinburgh and Bergen, may be qualified as being moderated in all seasons, that doesn't give me insight as to what the experience of living in those cities would be like climate wise.

[Ed's Mountain]

Originally Posted by Joe90

I don't think that climate classifications such as Koppen can claim to provide an understanding of how it is to live in climates within the same groupings either. They may qualify such groupings, and they most certainly attempt to quantify them, but I don't see that they capture the essence of climates, unless talking in extremes (desert, polar etc).

An example would be me trying to relate to Edinburgh and Bergen as climates, and understanding how they would be to live in, just because they are fellow Cfb climates - despite being in the opposite hemisphere, May and September are both warmer here than May and September in Edinburgh and Bergen, which along with features such as distribution of sunshine, snowfall etc makes the climates of those cities as alien to me as climates like NYC or Moscow.

While my climate, along with Edinburgh and Bergen, may be qualified as being moderated in all seasons, that doesn't give me insight as to what the experience of living in those cities would be like climate wise.

Ik wit net hoe't it is om yn Fryslân te wenjen. Mar it is dochs wol handich om te witten dat it Frysk en it Ingelsk beide Germaansk binne.

Translation, courtesy of Google:

Spoiler

I don't know what it's like to live in Frisia. But it's still helpful to know that Frisian and English are both Germanic.

[Joe90]

Originally Posted by Ed's Mountain

Ik wit net hoe't it is om yn Fryslân te wenjen. Mar it is dochs wol handich om te witten dat it Frysk en it Ingelsk beide Germaansk binne.

Translation, courtesy of Google:

Spoiler

I don't know what it's like to live in Frisia. But it's still helpful to know that Frisian and English are both Germanic.

Yep, that's how I see it too - How classifications are qualified, is more relevant than how they are quantified.

[Ed's Mountain]

Originally Posted by Joe90

Yep, that's how I see it too - How classifications are qualified, is more relevant than how they are quantified.

Maybe then the Cfb/Cfc border should be adjusted so that Edinburgh and Bergen get stuck with Tórshavn in Cfc while Motueka can hang out with Bordeaux and Biarritz in Cfb. But that's a topic for a different thread.

[Joe90]

Originally Posted by Ed's Mountain

Maybe then the Cfb/Cfc border should be adjusted so that Edinburgh and Bergen get stuck with Tórshavn in Cfc while Motueka can hang out with Bordeaux and Biarritz in Cfb. But that's a topic for a different thread.

I don't have an issue with Motueka, Edinburgh, and Bergen all being classified as Cfb , it quantifies, and more importantly qualifies them as climates that are heavily temperature moderated in all seasons.

I was just replying to Space_League's inference that classifications should share a common experience of how it feels to live in those climates. I certainly don't see those climates as something I can relate to - no more than I could relate to Minsk or Cleveland.

[melonside421]

One can argue that Canada is much more stable in its identity in terms of climate and whatnot instead of zones 6 and 7 in particular in America, the battle zones so to speak. These areas are actually worse than Canada because it's a deceiving climate zone to say the least. Too warm for regular snow cover and too cold for real subtropical vegetation, but some things are able to grow anyways: magnolias, American mango(paw-paw) and ornamental bananas.

I'd say the real subtropics could start around the Chesapeake Bay Area, where a lot of zone 8 winters can be found, despite the classification being zone 7(probably changed to 8 by now lol, since the government doesn't care to change it for some reason). That's another thing to note, is that, there isn't a solid map that notes of how things have changed, which I'd say that the Chesapeake Bay Area and Delmarva could probably have quite a bit of zone 8 in there.

Myrtle Beach, at least to my attestation, has gotten as far low as 25F, but to note as well, that many hard frost nights can still occur back-to-back in the span of one particular week in late January, but Myrtle Beach is really subtropical, Ofc, you cannot call a place like that as temperate as Ohio or upstate NY just because there are pines there; the pines look fundamentally different anyways, I know that because I study plants.

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Originally Posted by melonside421

One can argue that Canada is much more stable in its identity in terms of climate and whatnot instead of zones 6 and 7 in particular in America, the battle zones so to speak. These areas are actually worse than Canada because it's a deceiving climate zone to say the least. Too warm for regular snow cover and too cold for real subtropical vegetation, but some things are able to grow anyways: magnolias, American mango(paw-paw) and ornamental bananas.

I'd say the real subtropics could start around the Chesapeake Bay Area, where a lot of zone 8 winters can be found, despite the classification being zone 7(probably changed to 8 by now lol, since the government doesn't care to change it for some reason). That's another thing to note, is that, there isn't a solid map that notes of how things have changed, which I'd say that the Chesapeake Bay Area and Delmarva could probably have quite a bit of zone 8 in there.

Myrtle Beach, at least to my attestation, has gotten as far low as 25F, but to note as well, that many hard frost nights can still occur back-to-back in the span of one particular week in late January, but Myrtle Beach is really subtropical, Ofc, you cannot call a place like that as temperate as Ohio or upstate NY just because there are pines there; the pines look fundamentally different anyways, I know that because I study plants.

I consider Delmarva to be in my temperate transitional zone, a zone between Subtropical and Hot Summer Continental. Coldest month mean between 0°C and 5.9°C, and 4 or more months with means 18°C+

[melonside421]

Originally Posted by FirebirdCamaro1220

I consider Delmarva to be in my temperate transitional zone, a zone between Subtropical and Hot Summer Continental. Coldest month mean between 0°C and 5.9°C, and 4 or more months with means 18°C+

You're clearly not as hardy as I am then, but I get the point. The Carolinas are a lot more subtropical than VA and MD, where the latter states do feel warm temperate, but what you would notice is a lot of the areas along the MD and VA coast are pretty mild compared to where I am from, which is in the western part of VA.

I call VA, MD, DL, WV, KY, MO the "Middle Zone", aka too warm for snowcover and too cold for real subtropicalness, but maybe the Chesapeake Bay Area may be a milder version of that . I get that some people were never made for the cold, just like my mom, but my dad doesn't care either way. My mom loves the SC climate, and she notes of how winters are rather truly mild.

As I type though, we have had September and the first half of October as rather warmer than average; a good comparison is Owensboro, KY, where the averages from September-November really show the pattern for where I live and for where I am from. I could've planted things, but I waited too long and tonight will be 28, first fall frost it seems. Zero frost in October, and I am far from the coast, but mild nights can happen too, like what happened with the last couple of months or so.

[marlaver]

Originally Posted by melonside421

One can argue that Canada is much more stable in its identity in terms of climate and whatnot instead of zones 6 and 7 in particular in America, the battle zones so to speak. These areas are actually worse than Canada because it's a deceiving climate zone to say the least. Too warm for regular snow cover and too cold for real subtropical vegetation, but some things are able to grow anyways: magnolias, American mango(paw-paw) and ornamental bananas.

I'd say the real subtropics could start around the Chesapeake Bay Area, where a lot of zone 8 winters can be found, despite the classification being zone 7(probably changed to 8 by now lol, since the government doesn't care to change it for some reason). That's another thing to note, is that, there isn't a solid map that notes of how things have changed, which I'd say that the Chesapeake Bay Area and Delmarva could probably have quite a bit of zone 8 in there.

Myrtle Beach, at least to my attestation, has gotten as far low as 25F, but to note as well, that many hard frost nights can still occur back-to-back in the span of one particular week in late January, but Myrtle Beach is really subtropical, Ofc, you cannot call a place like that as temperate as Ohio or upstate NY just because there are pines there; the pines look fundamentally different anyways, I know that because I study plants.

Man, you are nailing it great analysis of the environment&climate relations, I guess your lines on the map would be similar to my own.

[Emman85]

Originally Posted by melonside421

Too warm for regular snow cover and too cold for real subtropical vegetation, but some things are able to grow anyways: magnolias, American mango(paw-paw) and ornamental bananas.

I agree, Trewartha called this area oceanic but that term does not capture the climate of the upper south/lower midwest.

Myrtle Beach, at least to my attestation, has gotten as far low as 25F, but to note as well, that many hard frost nights can still occur back-to-back in the span of one particular week in late January, but Myrtle Beach is really subtropical, Ofc, you cannot call a place like that as temperate as Ohio or upstate NY just because there are pines there; the pines look fundamentally different anyways, I know that because I study plants.

The pines of the southeast are subtropical, they all have those big deep green needles just like pines you see in the tropics. Pinus caribaea(caribbean pine) is indistinguishable from slash or longleaf pines.

The eastern white pine which is more typical of Ohio or New York looks quite different, it looks more like a spruce. Pines seem to be adapted to a wide range of climates rather than just cold adapted.

There's a city in the Philippines, Baguio, that is technically a tropical monsoonal climate(although it is close to subtropical highland) that is filled with pine trees.