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 distance to water is not what most important. It the water location relative to wind and it temperature that is more relevant and then the US and Europe are a lot more different.
The southern point of Europe is Greece at 34 degrees north. The northernmost point of Texas is at 35 degrees and the southern point is at 25 degrees. In regards to latitude that have a lot to to with climate most of Texas in in Africa not Europe.
South of Texas gulf of Mexico and to the west south-southwest you have the Caribbean and Atlantic. The prevailing winds from around 30 degrees from the equator is to the west. Farther away from the poles wind are mostly to the east. The result is water that evaporates in the warm water close to the equator travel up to the southern US and then turns to the east.
Europe on the other hand has Africa at that latitude and on land, you typically get higher temperatures so North Africa and the Middle East si very dry.
The rain that reaches Europe is primarily evaporation from the cooler North Atlantic with eastern winds that result in less rain.
So most of Europe is further away from the ocean at high temperatures and the right wind direction. Europe is more comparable to Western USA. You do not typically get the extreme amount as some parts of the Pacific Northwest get, that is primarily because there is quite very high mountains but look at Noway and Scottland. But at the same time, the land areas after that do not get as little rain as part of the US. The northern coast of Spain is approximately the same attitude as the Califonia-Oregon border
It is Asia’s east coast that is more comparable to the US east coast. There is more rain in the coastal parts of China, Korea, and Japan where you get a lot of rain. Because of the shape of the coastline and elevation difference the rain falls on smaller areas in the US
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