There’s a fair amount of discussion about why Europe is (for its latitude) so much warmer than America, but I can’t seem to find any explanations about why Europe is so dry compared to America.
To explain what I’m talking about, I’ve been looking into the climate data on Wikipedia of European and American cities recently and have noticed a very sharp difference their average precipitation levels. Specifically, European cities consistently seem to receive around 20-30 inches (about 500-760 mm) of rain a year whereas American cities east of the 98th degree longitude (about in the middle of Texas) receive somewhere between 40-60 inches (around 1000-1500 mm). The only European exceptions seem to be western parts of Ireland, the UK, and mountainous areas like northern Spain.
Even American cities in the plains west of the 98 receive rain comparable to places like Volgograd (between 15-20 inches) and places like Phoenix receive rain about equal to Atyrau (a Kazakhstani city on the north coast of the Caspian).
What makes this especially odd to me is that Europe, as a geographic entity, seems like it should receive more rain than America, given that most land in Europe is substantially closer to water compared to most places in America.
In: Planetary Science
The north equatorial current (which is both a wind and sea current) is constantly pushing air from the Atlantic over the US east coast. As the air is pushed up over land (and towards cooler climates) it can’t hold moisture and keeps raining until it’s once against pushed out over the atlantic.
With the exception of Ireland/England/Norway/North-western Spain Europe doesn’t have the same moist air pushed over it all the time. The air that flows over the alps tend to be from the much smaller mediterranean.
Overall it’s pretty much the same reason that Europe doesn’t have a hurricane season.
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