page_title: Continental climate
section_title: Europe
hierarchical_section_title: Continental climate / List of locations with a continental climate / Eurasia / Europe
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Андроников монастырь
context_page_description: Continental climates often have a significant annual variation in temperature. They tend to occur in the middle latitudes, where prevailing winds blow overland, and temperatures are not moderated by bodies of water such as oceans or seas. Continental climates occur mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, which has the kind of large landmasses on temperate latitudes required for this type of climate to develop. Most of northern and northeastern China, eastern and southeastern Europe, Western and north western Iran central and southeastern Canada, and the central and northeastern United States have this type of climate.
  In continental climates, precipitation tends to be moderate in amount, concentrated mostly in the warmer months. Only a few areas—in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest of North America and in Iran, northern Iraq, adjacent Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia—show a winter maximum in precipitation. A portion of the annual precipitation falls as snowfall, and snow often remains on the ground for more than a month. Summers in continental climates can feature thunderstorms and frequent hot temperatures; however, summer weather is more stable than winter weather.
context_section_description: Belarus: Minsk
  Bosnia and Herzegovina: Sarajevo
  Bulgaria: Sofia
  Estonia: Tallinn
  Finland: Helsinki, Turku
  Hungary: Budapest
  Latvia: Riga
  Lithuania: Vilnius
  Moldova: Chișinău
  Norway: Oslo
  Poland: Warsaw
  Romania: Bucharest
  Slovakia: Bratislava
  Switzerland: Bern
caption: Spassky Cathedral in Moscow
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