World Geography / Unit 5: North America
5.2 Climate and Biomes of North America
Notes
North America has almost every climate type because of its size and range of latitude.
- Arctic tundra in northern Canada and Alaska. Just south is the boreal forest (taiga), a huge belt of evergreen trees.
- The Pacific Northwest has a mild, rainy marine climate. California has a Mediterranean climate with dry summers.
- The Great Plains are semi-dry grassland (steppe). The Southwest has deserts (Mojave, Sonoran), partly because of mountain rain shadows.
- The eastern United States has humid continental climates in the north and humid subtropical in the south, with temperate forest.
- Hazards: hurricanes along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, tornadoes in the central US ("Tornado Alley"), blizzards in the north, wildfires and drought in the west.
Practice
Which hazard is most common along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the United States?
Warm ocean water feeds tropical storms in late summer and fall.
Which biome is the huge evergreen forest belt across central and southern Canada?
The boreal forest stretches across Canada south of the tundra.
Why are much of Nevada and Arizona dry?
Moist air loses its rain over the western mountains.
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