What Actually Determines the Climate of a Place?
Why is Miami hot and humid while Phoenix is hot and dry?
Why can you travel from a warm coastline into cool mountain air without traveling very far north or south?
Why do some places have four recognizable seasons while others organize the year around wet and dry periods?
A place's climate isn't random.
Every climate has a story. And if you know what to look for, you can start to understand why a place feels and functions the way it does.
Start with the Sun
At the largest scale, climate begins with energy from the Sun.
Earth doesn't receive that energy evenly.
Because our planet is curved, sunlight reaches different parts of Earth at different angles. Near the equator, at lower latitudes, solar energy is generally more concentrated. Toward the poles, at higher latitudes, the same energy is spread across a larger area.
Earth is also tilted on its axis. As our planet travels around the Sun, that tilt changes how much solar energy different regions receive throughout the year, creating our astronomical seasons.
This uneven distribution of energy is one of the fundamental forces behind Earth's climate system.
It helps create differences in temperature and pressure, which help drive atmospheric circulation. The atmosphere and oceans then continually redistribute heat and moisture around the planet.
But while that's the big picture, it doesn't explain everything.
Two places at similar latitudes can still have remarkably different climates, although they receive similar amounts of solar energy year-round.
That's because latitude sets the stage. Geography changes the story.
Elevation can change everything
Have you ever traveled somewhere tropical only to discover that you needed a jacket? (I have! 😅)
You may have elevation to thank.
As you move higher into the atmosphere, air pressure decreases. Rising air expands and cools, which is one reason higher-elevation locations are generally cooler than nearby lowlands.
This can create striking contrasts over relatively short distances.
A city in the tropics isn’t always hot in the way people expect—high elevation can make tropical places surprisingly cool.
Even near the equator, a city thousands of feet above sea level can have a much cooler climate than the “hot and humid” image people often associate with tropical regions.
That's why looking at latitude alone can be misleading.
Sometimes you need to look up.
Mountains don't just affect temperature
Mountains can reshape climate in another important way: by changing how air moves.
When moist air encounters a mountain range, the terrain doesn’t just “block” the air—it forces it to follow the shape of the land. The air is pushed upward along the windward side of the mountain, rising as if it is climbing the first half of a rollercoaster.
As it rises, the air expands and cools. If it cools enough, water vapor condenses into clouds and can produce precipitation. This is why one side of a mountain range is often much wetter.
But what happens next is just as important.
Once the air reaches the opposite side of the mountain, it has usually released much of its moisture through precipitation. Next, it descends, beginning the downward side of the rollercoaster. As it descends, it is compressed by increasing air pressure, and the air becomes warmer.
So by the time the air reaches the other side, it is not only warming—it is also much drier than it was before it ever hit the mountain. The result is air that tends to suppress cloud formation and rainfall, often creating dry or even desert-like conditions.
This full process is sometimes called the rain shadow effect, and it can create dramatic contrasts on opposite sides of the same mountain range.
This is one reason terrain matters so much when you're trying to understand a place.
A mountain isn't simply scenery.
It's part of the climate system.
Oceans change the equation
Water heats and cools differently from land.
Because large bodies of water can absorb, store, and release enormous amounts of heat, the ocean can moderate temperatures in nearby areas.
Coastal locations therefore often experience smaller temperature swings than places deep within a continent.
But simply being near an ocean doesn't tell you the whole story.
Ocean currents move heat around the planet. Depending on the current, warmer or cooler water can be carried between regions. Those currents can influence the temperature and moisture characteristics of the air above them and, in turn, affect nearby climates.
This helps explain why two coastal cities at similar latitudes can experience very different conditions.
The question isn't only:
How close is this place to water?
It's also:
What is that water doing?
Distance from the ocean matters too
Move farther inland and the ocean's moderating influence generally weakens.
Land surfaces can heat and cool relatively quickly, which can contribute to larger temperature swings over both a day and a year.
That's one reason continental interiors can experience very hot summers and very cold winters while some coastal locations at similar latitudes remain comparatively moderate.
Again, geography is modifying the broader climate pattern.
Then there's atmospheric circulation
Earth's atmosphere is constantly moving, whether you notice it or not. The presence of clouds allows us to view this in real time—but even when there are no clouds in sight, the atmosphere is constantly in motion.
The uneven heating of the planet creates large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns that redistribute heat and moisture. These patterns help determine where air tends to rise, where it tends to sink, where prevailing winds come from (the dominant long-term wind direction), and where certain regions are more likely to be wet or dry.
Some parts of the world are influenced by persistent belts of rising air and frequent rainfall.
Others sit beneath regions where air commonly sinks, discouraging cloud formation and contributing to dry conditions.
These large-scale circulation patterns help explain why many of Earth's major climate zones appear where they do.
They also shift seasonally.
In some regions, that seasonal movement contributes to monsoons and distinct wet and dry seasons.
So when the rainy season arrives year after year, you're not just witnessing a collection of rainy days.
You're seeing part of a much larger planetary pattern.
Climate is the result of a system
A place might be warm because of its latitude but cooler than expected because of its elevation.
It might sit near an ocean but remain unusually dry because of atmospheric circulation, ocean conditions, or nearby terrain.
It might lie beside a mountain range that creates abundant precipitation on one side and much drier conditions on the other.
These influences don't operate independently.
They interact.
That's why understanding climate requires us to think in systems.
The atmosphere interacts with the ocean.
The ocean interacts with the land.
Mountains redirect air.
Vegetation exchanges water and energy with the atmosphere.
Snow and ice reflect solar energy.
Soils store and release water.
And all of it is powered, ultimately, by energy moving through the Earth system.
You can learn to read a place
The next time you arrive somewhere new—or even walk around the place where you live—look beyond the temperature.
Ask:
Where am I on the planet?
How high above sea level am I?
Am I near an ocean or another large body of water?
Are there mountains nearby?
Where does the moisture come from?
When does it rain, and when doesn't it?
What does the vegetation tell me?
That's one of the foundations of climate literacy: understanding that the conditions around us are connected to a larger physical system—and learning enough about that system to recognize its patterns.
It's also why knowing that a place is "hot," "rainy," or "dry" only tells you part of the story.
The more interesting question is:
Why?
That's the question ClimoraLens is built to help you answer.
Because once you understand why a place has the climate it does, you're not just checking the weather anymore.
You're learning how to read the planet.
