Bismarck, North Dakota (USA) 46° 48’ N, 100° 45’ W

To reference the temperature and rainfall information for a location quickly, geographers use climographs. Above is a climograph for Bismarck, North Dakota. On this climograph, and others that you will encounter, the temperature is expressed in degrees Fahrenheit, and the precipitation is expressed in inches. As the climograph shows, Bismarck, ND, has relatively hot summers, cold winters, and receives about 16 inches of precipitation per year. The climate type classifications in this lesson puts Bismarck into a transition between humid continental and semiarid climate regions.

Temperature and precipitation tell you something about climate, but latitude, or the distance north or south of the equator, can tell you a lot, as well. The climograph of Bismarck shown above clearly illustrates that this location experiences notable seasonal changes in temperature and precipitation. Why does this occur? It has to do with the way Earth is tilted on its axis and where Earth resides in space in relation to the sun. Due to the tilt, the locations farther from the equator experience more drastic changes in the amount of sunlight received daily as the seasons change. For example, in northern Alaska, Canada, and other far northern lands, conditions can range from little or no sunlight in a 24-hour period during the winter to nearly a full 24 hours of sunlight during the summer. In areas closer to the equator, there is much less seasonal variation in the number of hours of sunlight or darkness per day.