Prague Weather and Climate: Climate Controls

When examining Prague's current climate conditions and weather patterns, it is important to understand it's meso-scale and micro-scale climate controls. Meso-scale controllers are those that are at a regional scale that affect the location such as geographical local while micro scale controllers are those that are more localized.

Prague's geographical location at 50°05"N and 14°27"E puts the city right in the heart of the mid-latitude climate which can cause great changes in seasonal temperatures. The city can also receive decent amounts of rainfall during the summer months, however, due to some orthographic lifting and its far location from the ITCZ, large and continuous rainfall is rare. Because of it's location, the area is often affected by Icelandic Lows and Azores highs that are common in the Northern Hemisphere. The Azores highs can bring in dry, warm air into the region during the summer months but can be replaced by the onset of the Icelandic low which brings storms to the area. Prague's locale, being a very central city on the continent of Europe, has a large effect on the temperature of the city as well. Due to continentality, the sun's long waves are absorbed by the ground and reflected back into the atmosphere. This causes the summer months to be relatively warm and the winter months to be cold as well as significant diurnal temperates as well.

Icelandic Low Azores High

On a micro-scale level the area is in the bottom of the Bohemian Basin which casues a lot of differences in preciptation in the area when compared to areas in the mountains around. The city is also affected by the urban heat island effect due to the city's population of 1.3 million people. This causes temperatures the be warmer in the city then it might be in the country side or other smaller cities nearby.

When referring to the Koppen-Geiger classification (see image below), the city is classified as a warm-temperate climate that is fully humid with warm summers. This is common to most of Europe outside of the Mediterranean region and Scandinavia.