page_title: Geography of Wales
section_title: Climate
hierarchical_section_title: Geography of Wales / Climate
caption_attribution_description: The rain is coming, Snowdon
context_page_description: The geography of Wales, a country that is part of the United Kingdom, is characterised by a varied coastline and a largely upland interior. It is bordered by England to its east, the Irish Sea to its north and west, and the Bristol Channel to its south. It has a total area of 2,064,100 hectares and is about 170 mi from north to south and at least 60 mi wide. It has a number of offshore islands, by far the largest of which is Anglesey. The mainland coastline, including Anglesey, is about 1,680 mi in length. As of 2014, Wales had a population of about 3,092,000; Cardiff is the capital and largest city and is situated in the urbanised area of South East Wales.
  Wales has a complex geological history which has left it a largely mountainous country. The coastal plain is narrow in the north and west of the country but wider in the south, where the Vale of Glamorgan has some of the best agricultural land. Exploitation of the South Wales Coalfield during the Industrial Revolution resulted in the development of an urban economy in the South Wales Valleys, and the expansion of the port cities of Newport, Cardiff and Swansea for the export of coal.
context_section_description: Wales has a maritime climate, the predominant winds being southwesterlies and westerlies blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean. This means that the weather in Wales is in general mild, cloudy, wet and windy. The country's wide geographic variations cause localised differences in amounts of sunshine, rainfall and temperature. Rainfall in Wales varies widely, with the highest average annual totals in Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons, and the lowest near the coast and in the east, close to the English border. Throughout Wales, the winter months are significantly wetter than the summer ones. Snow is comparatively rare near sea level in Wales, but much more frequent over the hills, and the uplands experience harsher conditions in winter than the more low-lying parts.
  The mean annual temperatures in Wales are about 11 °C (52 °F) on the coast and 9.5 °C (49 °F) in low-lying inland areas. It becomes cooler at higher altitudes, with a mean decrease in annual temperatures of approximately 0.5 °C (0.9 °F) for each 100 metres (330 feet) of increased altitude. Consequently, the higher parts of Snowdonia experience mean annual temperatures of 5 °C (41 °F). At nights, the coldest conditions occur when there is little wind and no cloud cover, especially when the ground is snow-clad; the lowest temperature recorded in Wales was in conditions of this sort at Rhayader on New Year's Day, 1940, when the temperature fell to −23.3 °C (−9.9 °F). Occasionally, the coastal area of North Wales experiences some of the warmest winter conditions in the United Kingdom, with temperatures up to 18 °C (64 °F); these result from  a Foehn wind, a south-westerly airflow warming up as it descends from the mountains of Snowdonia.
  Rainfall in Wales is mostly as a result of the arrival of Atlantic low pressure systems and is heaviest between October and January over the whole country. The driest months are usually April, May and June, and Wales experiences fewer summer thunderstorms than England. Rainfall varies across the country with the highest records being from the greatest elevations. Snowdonia experiences total annual rainfalls exceeding 3,000 mm (118 in) whereas coastal regions of Wales and the English border may have less than 1,000 mm (39 in).  The combination of mountainous areas and Atlantic lows can produce large quantities of rain and sometimes results in flooding. The amount of snowfall varies with altitude and enormously from year to year. In the lowlands, the number of days with lying snow may vary from zero to thirty or more, with an average of about twenty in Snowdonia.
  Wales is one of the windier parts of the United Kingdom. The strongest winds are usually associated with Atlantic depressions; as one of these arrives, the winds usually start in the southwest, before veering to the west and then to the northwest as the system passes by. The southwest of Pembrokeshire experiences the most gale-force winds. The highest wind speed ever recorded in Wales at a lowland site was gusts of 108 knots (200 km/h; 124 mph) at Rhoose, in the Vale of Glamorgan, on 28 October 1989.
caption: Rain coming in from the west in Snowdonia
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