North America Climate Patterns

North America's size means it holds nearly every climate type that exists, often within a single country. Northern Canada sits in the Arctic and subarctic, with long, severe winters and a short summer; the interior plains of both Canada and the United States have a continental climate of hot summers and cold winters with limited moderating effect from any ocean.

The Pacific coast tells a different story — Vancouver and Seattle sit in a temperate maritime zone with mild, wet winters, while California further south shifts into a Mediterranean climate of dry summers and wet winters. The American Southwest and much of northern Mexico are arid to semi-arid desert, some of the driest inhabited land on the continent.

Moving further south into Mexico, climate becomes governed less by season and more by elevation and coastline — the central highlands stay mild year-round regardless of month, while the Yucatán and Pacific coastal lowlands are properly tropical, with a clear wet season (roughly June–October) rather than four traditional seasons at all.