THE WEATHER IN ENGLAND

The English say «Other countries have a climate, in England we have weather*. It happens because the weather changes more often than in other countries. British winters are mild and springs are cool because of the winds that blow from the Atlantic Ocean. They blow 2 days out of every 3.

In spring sunshine and showers follow each other so often during the day that an umbrella or a raincoat is absolutely necessary in England. The weather changes so frequently that it is difficult to forecast. It is not unusual for people to complain that the weathermen were wrong.

The weather in spring is generally mild but sometimes the days are really fresh. Spring is the season when nature awakens from its long winter sleep: the temperature grows, the sky becomes blue, and the sun grows warmer. Everything is full of new life again. The days grow longer and warmer; the ground gets covered with green grass.

Summer is the hottest season in England. The sunrays become hot, the days are long, and the nights are short and warm. It's time for holidays, when people go to the seaside for sunbathing and swimming. It usually gets hot in July. The summer nights are short, but they are wonderful.

As for autumn it isn't so nice. It's a season of winds and beautiful sunsets. The leaves turn yellow and reddish and fall to the ground and the birds migrate to warm countries. In autumn the days become shorter. A spell of sunny weather in September is called Indian summer or «Golden Autumn». In England September and October are warm and dry, but November is the foggiest month. Late autumn is generally an unpleasant season. Everything begins to take a different colour. The trees look bare. The flowers have faded away. The sky is overcast with low clouds. Everything looks gloomy.

In winter in England they can hardly forecast their weather. Sometimes it rains and sometimes it snows. In England it isn't so cold in winter as in our country and they don't get so much snow as we get here in Ukraine. The rivers in England never freeze, that's why children there go skating very seldom. When there are 8 degrees of frost in England everyone complains of hazards. The weather in England is very changeable. A fine morning can change into a wet afternoon and evening. And a nasty morning can change into a fine afternoon. That is why it is natural for the English to use the comparison "as changeable as the weather" of a person who often changes his mood or opinion about something. "Other countries have a climate; in England we have weather". This statement is often made by the English to describe the meteorological conditions of their country.

The English also say that they have three variants of weather: when it rains in the morning, when it rains in the afternoon, or when it rains all day long.

The weather is the favorite conversational topic in England. When two Englishmen meet, their first words will be "How are you?" And after the reply "Very well, thank you; how are you?" the next remark is almost certain to be about the weather. When they go abroad the English often surprise people of other nationalities by this tendency to talk about the weather, a topic of conversation that other people do not find so interesting.

The best time of the year in England is spring (of course, it rains in spring, too). The two worst months in Britain are January and February. They are cold, damp, and unpleasant. The best place in the world then is at home by the fire.

Summer months are rather cold and there can be a lot of rainy days. So most people, who look forward to summer holidays, plan to go abroad for the summer, to France or somewhere on the Continent.

The most unpleasant aspects of the weather in England are fog and smog. The climate in the United Kingdom is defined as a temperate oceanic climate, or Cfb on the Köppen climate classification system, a classification it shares with most of north-west Europe.[1] Regional climates are influenced by the Atlantic Ocean and latitude. Northern Ireland, Wales and western parts of England and Scotland, being closest to the Atlantic Ocean, are generally the mildest, wettest and windiest regions of the UK, and temperature ranges here are seldom extreme. Eastern areas are drier, cooler, and less windy, and also experience the greatest daily and seasonal temperature variations. Northern areas are generally cooler and wetter, and have slightly larger temperature ranges than southern areas.

The UK is mostly under the influence of the maritime polar air mass from the north-west. Northern Ireland and the west of Scotland are the most exposed to the maritime polar air mass which brings cool moist air; the east of Scotland and north-east England are more exposed to the continental polar air mass which brings cold dry air. The south and south-east of England are the least exposed to polar air masses from the north-west, and on occasion see continental tropical air masses from the south, which bring warm dry air in the summer. On average, the temperature ranges from 25-18 degrees.