Weather and climate

Weather is the state of the troposphere at a place at the present moment or over a certain period; its elements are temperature, humidity, wind and air pressure. Weather changes from day to day; if it stays the same for several days it is called stable weather. Weather stations, satellites and weather maps are used to forecast it. Climate is the long-term regime of weather typical of a place: it includes long-term mean temperature and precipitation, winds, and the highest and lowest values. Climate depends on the place’s latitude (the area near the equator heats most – hence the heat zones), on its distance from the ocean (maritime climate: warm winter, cool summer, much rain; continental climate: cold winter, hot summer, little rain), on its height above sea level and on the position of mountain ranges. Spain and Greece lie at about the same latitude as Uzbekistan, but warm moist air from the Atlantic gives them a milder, wetter winter. Uzbekistan is far from the oceans, so its climate is continental: hot dry summers (Tashkent’s July mean ≈ +27 °C), cold winters (January ≈ 0…+1 °C, with much lower temperatures on some days) and little precipitation. Cities, roads and dams cannot be planned, nor crops sown, without knowing the climate.