Climate: mostly temperate, but tropical in Hawaii and Florida, arctic in Alaska, semiarid in the great plains west of the Mississippi River, and arid in the Great Basin of the southwest; low winter temperatures in the northwest are ameliorated occasionally in January and February by warm chinook winds from the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains
note: many consider Denali, the highest peak in the US, to be the world’s coldest mountain because of its combination of high elevation and its subarctic location at 63 degrees north latitude; permanent snow and ice cover over 75 percent of the mountain, and enormous glaciers, up to 45 miles long and 3,700 feet thick, spider out from its base in every direction; it is home to some of the world’s coldest and most violent weather, where winds of over 150 miles per hour and temperatures of -93°F have been recorded.
Definition: This entry includes a brief description of typical weather regimes throughout the year; in the World entry only, it includes four subfields that describe climate extremes:
ten driest places on earth (average annual precipitation) describes the annual average precipitation measured in both millimeters and inches for selected countries with climate extremes.
Source: CIA World Factbook - This page was last updated on Saturday, September 18, 2021
