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Climate Regions
W
hat’s the weather like today? What was it like last year on this
date? Probably just about the same. We can predict what the
weather will be like next year because weather tends to follow
a pattern over a long time. The big patterns of weather describe a
region’s
climate
.
Climate describes the typical weather conditions in a region. The
climate in Hawaii is quite different from the climate in Minnesota.
The Hawaiian climate is warm, sunny, and pleasant all year long. The
Minnesota climate is freezing cold in the winter, and hot and humid
during the summer.
Meteorologists have created models to describe climate in different
regions of Earth. The general rule is that a place close to the equator has
a warm climate, and a place farther from the equator has a cold climate.
With this simple rule, regions fall into three broad groups. The
polar
zone
at the North and South Poles has a very cold climate with long
winters. The
tropical zone
near the equator has a hot climate and no
winter. Everything in between is in the
temperate zone
. With this
simple model, most of North America is one climate zone.
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