European climate

Western Europe has an Oceanic climate, far southern Europe has a Mediterranean climate, and eastern Europe is classified as having a Continental climate. The climate of western Europe is strongly conditioned by the Gulf Stream, which keeps mild air (for the latitude) over Northwestern Europe in the winter months, especially in Ireland, the UK and coastal Norway. Parts of the central European plains have a hybrid oceanic/continental climate. Four seasons occur in Eastern Europe, while southern Europe experiences distinct wet season and dry seasons, with prevailing hot and dry conditions during the summer months.

The Prevailing westerlies create the basic climate across much of Europe. The Siberian High brings colder, drier weather from the east. Away from the sea, parts of Central and Eastern Europe have a borderline Oceanic/Continental Climate as they are milder than they would otherwise be due to the open ice-free waters of the North/Baltic Seas and lack of mountain barriers, but are not as mild as the Western coasts, and are subject to more frequent snowfalls. The Danube region through the Balkans, Ukraine and Southern Russia have a continental climate with cold winters and hotter summers, some areas bordering on a dry steppe climate with only certain months of higher precipitation, often due to thunderstorms.

A narrow strip along the eastern side of the Black Sea has a modified version of a humid subtropical climate, for example in Sochi, Russia. On the plains of Northern European Russia up to the Ural Mountains, the winter climate is much harsher than elsewhere in Europe with many months of below freezing average temperatures but with periods of hot summer weather. Nevertheless, year-to-year variations can produce different climates such as temperate in the winter, and tropical in the summer.

The climate of Western Europe is milder in comparison to other areas of the same latitude around the globe due to the influence of the Gulf Stream. The Mediterranean’s waters are not as deep as the large oceans, allowing it to become a heat store tempering winters along its coastlines. The Gulf Stream is nicknamed "Europe's central heating", because it makes Europe's climate warmer and wetter than it would otherwise be. The North Atlantic Oscillation and Arctic Oscillation also play large roles in determining the amount of Arctic air that penetrates southward diminishing the Gulf stream’s warming effects during winter.

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Wikipedia