Climate observations - overview

Although this resource deals mostly with national average climates, it is important to consider the geographical variations in climate that occur across countries. A national average may not be very appropriate when considering countries that include different climate regimes, strong contrasts in orography, etc. Maps are included here to show the geographic variations. The maps on this overview page show the 1961-1990 average annual temperature and precipitation across this country or region from the CRU TS observations (New et al., 1999).

The gridded data, including timeseries of monthly values for each 0.5° grid cell, and the underlying station data, are available in scientific formats from here and via a convenient Google Earth interface here.

National average 1961-1990 temperature and precipitation normals for each month of the year are shown in the table and figure below. Seasonal and annual values are also given.

Click for larger image

1961-1990	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Mean temp	-16.5	-16.8	-16.4	-13.1	-5.9	-0.1	3.6	2.7	-1.6	-6.8	-11.6	-15.2	°C
Precipitation	45.8	45.0	47.0	30.2	24.5	28.0	36.8	46.3	47.5	45.8	45.0	48.1	mm/month

1961-1990	MAM	JJA	SON	DJF	Annual
Mean temp	-11.8	2.1	-6.7	-16.1	-8.1	°C
Precipitation	33.9	37.0	46.1	46.6	40.8	mm/month

Data files

National-average 1961-1990 CRU TS observed normals can be downloaded:

• Temperature, csv format
• Precipitation, csv format