political and continents maps (back to main Scandia maps page)
Polar views of Scandia:![]()
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Currents shown are red for warm currents, blue for cold currents. Their alignment is generalized - some variation may be expected between summer and winter. Extent of sea ice is not shown, pending info from involved nations. As the focus is the oceans, the exact political boundaries on land won't be updated as often on these as on the master political map. Note that if these look distorted, they are -- no projection (except a globe) can be completely free from distortion, these are just distorted differently from the familiar elliptical projection. Scale on the polar views is constant north-south (radially) and on the cylindrical projection also north-south.
Ocean Currents of Scandia:
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Winds of Scandia - Northern Summer:
General seasonal high and low pressure systems indicated by H and L. Red is for that hemisphere's summer, cyan for its winter. There's more variability in the southern hemisphere thanks to the more complex arrangement of land and sea - the eastern-Thalantryan southern-winter low can almost disappear. The southern-winter Posdosan Ocean low can "pop" to the north or south, suddenly shifting weather patterns. In some southern summers there's a strong low above the Morlel "elbow", other summers that is weak to the point of nonexistence. In the north, the Doranian Continental High can wander east-west, but that's about all the variation from year to year.![]()
Winds of Scandia - Southern Summer:
Prevailing winds are the biggest power behind ocean currents. You'll note some of the currents as drawn seem to buck that. Sometimes that's a case of "nowhere else to go but upwind". Other times it's just a goof up because currents were figured out long before likely pressure and wind patterns. <shrug> ... One thing we can say is the summer wind patterns have a stronger effect than the winter ones - that will rationalize some of the water flow.![]()
From these average prevailing winds we can guess some weather patterns, and the likely climates of nations. Weather has other driver than just these, of course, but this will do for generalities. Where winds cross mountain ranges they drop moisture on the upwind side. Where winter winds cross a continental water body (say, Lake Niveria), there can be heavy lake-effect snows downwind. Warm summer mid-latitude oceans can generate westward-moving hurricanes. Nearness to oceans, particularly temperate ones, moderates both summer and winter land temperatures. A prevailing high that stays put generates "better" weather -- clearer, drier. Farmers of course want some wetter weather too.