page_title: Americas
section_title: Climate
hierarchical_section_title: Americas / Geography / Climate
caption_attribution_description: English: Edited Americas map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification. The original was a world map JPG file which was converted to a smaller PNG file, without extra modifications, by Jeroen. The PNG file was further modified by WolfmanSF as follows: the map was cropped to reduce it to South America and most of North America; climate zone Dfa was changed to web color 99CC99, and climate zone Dfb was changed to web color 339933 (both shades of green); the color modifications to climate zones of temperate North America were intended to make the colors of tropical climate zones more distinctive, for use in articles on the Great American Interchange. The legend was rearranged, and climate zones Cwc, Dsd, Dwa, Dwd and Dfd were removed from the legend because they do not appear on this map.
context_page_description: The Americas is a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
  Along with their associated islands, the Americas cover 8% of Earth's total surface area and 28.4% of its land area. The topography is dominated by the American Cordillera, a long chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by large river basins, such as the Amazon, St. Lawrence River / Great Lakes basin, Mississippi, and La Plata. Since the Americas extend 14,000 km from north to south, the climate and ecology vary widely, from the arctic tundra of Northern Canada, Greenland, and Alaska, to the tropical rain forests in Central America and South America.
  Humans first settled the Americas from Asia between 42,000 and 17,000 years ago. A second migration of Na-Dene speakers followed later from Asia. The subsequent migration of the Inuit into the neoarctic around 3500 BCE completed what is generally regarded as the settlement by the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
context_section_description: The climate of the Americas varies significantly from region to region. Tropical rainforest climate occurs in the latitudes of the Amazon, American cloud forests, southeastern Florida and Darien Gap. In the Rocky Mountains and Andes, dry and continental climates are observed. Often the higher altitudes of these mountains are snow-capped.
  Southeastern North America is well known for its occurrence of tornadoes and hurricanes, of which the vast majority of tornadoes occur in the United States' Tornado Alley, as well as in the southerly Dixie Alley in the North American late-winter and early spring seasons. Often parts of the Caribbean are exposed to the violent effects of hurricanes. These weather systems are formed by the collision of dry, cool air from Canada and wet, warm air from the Atlantic.
caption: Climate zones of the Americas in the Köppen climate classification system.
exif: {}