Europe Climate Patterns

Europe's climate is set less by latitude than by distance from the Atlantic. The Gulf Stream carries warm water northeast from the tropics, which is why London and Paris have far milder winters than cities at similar latitudes in North America or Asia — Western Europe's climate is maritime: mild, wet, and relatively stable year-round, with rain spread fairly evenly across the seasons rather than concentrated in one.

Moving east, that moderating effect fades. Central and Eastern Europe have a continental climate instead — colder winters, hotter summers, and a much wider gap between the two. Southern Europe, along the Mediterranean coast, follows its own pattern: hot, dry summers and mild, wetter winters, which is why the travel season there peaks opposite to what a visitor might expect from the rest of the continent.

The north is different again. Scandinavia and the Baltic states run cold and often subarctic, with short, intense summers and long winters — worth knowing if "Europe" as a single seasonal idea is doing more harm than good when planning a trip that spans more than one of these zones.