May. Summer is a season of high temperatures and cloudless skies. The average annual rainfall is 500 mm, the fall from December to February being nearly two-thirds of the yearly total. Autumn and winter rainfall on which agriculture and water supplies generally depend is variable from year to year. What is abundant, however, is sunshine during the whole year, particularly from April to September when the daily average exceeds 11 hours. Winds are on the whole light to moderate.
Gales are very infrequent and storms rare.
Snow hardly falls in the lowlands and on the Northern range, but is a frequent feature every winter on ground above 1.000 metres in the Troodos range. From December till April snow is usually in evidence there, but hardly continuous. Yet during the coldest months it lies in considerable depth for several weeks, attracting skiers. With its approximately 1.800 species and subspecies of flowering plants, Cyprus, is an extremely interesting place for nature lovers and has all the attributes which make it a botanist's paradise. Being an island, it is sufficiently isolated to allow the evolution of a strong endemic flowering element.