page_title: Climate of Europe
section_title: Gulf Stream
hierarchical_section_title: Climate of Europe / Gulf Stream
caption_attribution_description: Español: Promedio de horas anuales de sol English: Average amount of sunshine yearly (hours)
context_page_description: Most of Western Europe has an Oceanic climate, in the Köppen climate classification. Oceanic climates normally feature cool summers, cool winters, and frequent overcast skies in fall, winter, and early spring. Far southern Europe has a Mediterranean climate, which features warmer to hot summers, less annual rainfall, and frequent sunny skies. Central-eastern Europe is classified as having a Continental climate, which features hot summers, cold winters, and large annual ranges of temperatures. The climate of western Europe is strongly conditioned by the Gulf Stream, which keeps mild air over Northwestern Europe in the winter months, especially in Ireland, the UK and coastal Norway.
  Parts of the central European plains have a hybrid oceanic/continental climate. Four seasons occur in most of Europe away from the Mediterranean. The coastal lowlands near and on the Mediterranean Sea, have more of a wet and dry season pattern, with winter the season of most rainfall, and summers a time of few rainy days.
context_section_description: The climate of Western Europe is milder in comparison to other areas of the same latitude around the globe due to the influence of the Gulf Stream.  The Mediterranean's waters are not as deep as the large oceans, allowing it to become a heat store tempering winters along its coastlines. The Gulf Stream is nicknamed "Europe's central heating", because it makes Europe's climate warmer and wetter than it would otherwise be.
  Compared to areas located in the higher middle latitudes, parts of western Europe have mild winters and higher annual temperatures (though summers are cooler than locations at the same latitude). Berlin, Germany; Calgary, Canada; and Irkutsk, in the Asian part of Russia, lie on around the same latitude; January temperatures in Berlin average around 8 °C (15 °F) higher than those in Calgary (although Calgary sits 1200m higher in altitude), and they are almost 22 °C (40 °F) higher than average temperatures in Irkutsk.
  This difference is even larger on the northern part of the continent. The January average in Brønnøysund, Norway, is almost 15 °C warmer than the January average in Nome, Alaska, both towns are situated upwind on the west coast of the continents at 65°N, and as much as 42 °C warmer than the January average in Yakutsk which is actually slightly further south. Further south the oceanic climate of Europe compares thermally to North America, at around 48°N Rennes, France has about an equal average temperature throughout the year to Seattle, Washington, although the latter has drier summers with much wetter winters.
caption: The average amount of sunshine yearly (hours).
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