Weather has a tremendous influence

Weather has a tremendous influence on human settlement patterns, food production and personal comfort. As for me, I prefer warm weather with sunshine and a light breeze. But sometimes when I am in a romantic mood I enjoy rainy weather. It is nice to watch thunderstorm with lightning and shower sitting in a cosy armchair and reading an interesting fiction. Af­ter the rain it is always easy to breathe as there is special air enriched by ozone. As for winter I should say that frost and snow make me feel good as they clean the air from pollutants. When next morning after a heavy snow­fall you go outside you can’t but admire the wonderful designs created by frost. Every weather should be treated right because nothing in the world happens on purpose.

Different instruments are used to measure atmospheric phenomena - the rain gauge, barometer, anemometer, psychrometer and thermometer.

Nowadays, besides the data collected at the weather station, a meteoro­logist can get information from satellites, radar and instrumented balloons.

Then all the data is taken and a weather forecast is made by a meteoro­logist on the basis of his knowledge and experience.

Finally, the weather forecast is sent to its users via television, radio, and the Internet.

The UK

The UK is an island country and its weather and climate are strongly in­fluenced by the sea which surrounds the British Isles (Great Britain and Ireland). The climate of the UK is influenced by its location. As it covers a large area, its climate is mostly temperate. It’s moderated by southwest winds over the North Atlantic Current. More than half of the days are overcast. Ample rainfall is also characteristic.

As the British Isles are many times smaller than other lands in the Northern Hemisphere, they are more influenced by the ocean than inland countries with similar lati­tude¹. The sea warms up and cools down more slowly than land, keeping winters relatively (относительно) warm but also mak­ing the summers cooler. Also, the warm sea current called the Gulf Stream which starts in the Gulf of Mexico keeps the sea on the west side of Britain warmer - frosts are rare (редки) in these areas.

The overall climate in the UK is called temperate maritime. This means that it is mild with temperatures not much lower than 0 °C in winter and not much higher than 30 °C in summer. It also means that it is damp and changeable

There are four seasons: spring (March to May), summer (June to August), autumn (September to November) and winter (De­cember to February).

Summer is a warm season with some showers and rain. The average temperature is around 14 °C. Temperatures can reach up to 30 °C on some days, but very rarely. Southern England offers the best weather, as it is the sunniest part of the UK. July and August are normally the warmest months in the UK. In autumn the weather gets colder and the average temperature is 10 °C. Leaves start changing colour and falling off the trees. There are more rain showers and it can be quite windy Winter is usually very mild with an average temperature of around 6 °C. Sometimes it snows and it can also be icy. There is little sunshine in winter, with an average of an hour a day in northern Scotland and two hours a day on the south coast of England Probably the best months to travel in England are May, June, September and October. These months generally have the most pleasant temperatures and least rain. July and August are the warmest months, but they are also the wettest. The sunniest parts of the Britain are along the south coast of England.

BELARUS '

Belarus is situated in the temperate zone of 200-500 kilometres away from the Baltic Sea. The climate of the country varies from maritime to con­tinental due to a strong influence of the maritime air of the Atlantic. This re­sults in temperate and mild climate.

Belarus has a temperate-continental climate which is typical of Central Europe, with hot summers, long, cold winters and very distinct seasons.

The annual average temperature is about 7 °C. Annual average rainfall is about 600 mm. It can rain through­out the year.

In general, there are no significant differences between the districts of Belarus, due to the small size of the country.

The climate is conditioned by the country’s inland location, domination of flat relief and relative remoteness from the Atlantic Ocean. Belarus weather in the spring and autumn is usually cool but above zero and it can be damp and rainy when low pressure systems from the Atlantic have more influence on the weather. May in spring and September in autumn are generally pleasant with warm sunny days. In summer Belarus usually has very nice, sunny and mild weather. Minsk temperatures average 16-17 °C, though temperatures up to 25 °C in the daytime are not unusual. The summer temperatures in Minsk have reached more than 30 °C lately. Thunderstorms are quite common in the late afternoon and evening and can be very heavy sometimes. Summer is sunny and dry most of the time and a very good season for visiting the country, but it is better to come early or late in summer to avoid the terrible heat.

Belarus winters are very cold. While the winter temperatures average -4 to -7 degrees centi­grade, temperatures as low as -25 centigrade are not uncommon in the winter months and it can be very windy. There can be snowfalls, some­times heavy, throughout the country from De­cember to early March. However, in some years the winters are mild with westerly winds and temperatures around or even above zero.

Summer is the hottest season in the year. The bright sun scorches the earth. It will be pleasant to get out of town and ramble through woods, among hills and valleys, following winding paths that will be hardly seen to the naked eye in the thick green grass. The fields in Belarus are usually green and shorn in summer - here and there big stacks of hay are seen.

You can also come in autumn. The trees will be laden with ripening fruit and colourful leaves. There will be a special smell of autumn which I love to smell. The most wonderful time will be Indian summer which will bring a spell of unusually fine weather. Everything will begin taking a different colour and garment in the lonely quiet of the countryside.

Then there will be a breath of winter in the autumn air as there will be getting colder day by day. It will be on a morning in December that you will get up and look out of the window and see the ground, the roofs of the houses thick with snow. In the woods the branches of the trees will be also feathered with snow. Everything around will look so beautiful!

But I should say that the spring you would like most of all because spring is the season of hope and happiness. It is the season when nature awakens from the winter sleep - the ice will be broken, the grass will be be­ginning to shoot, buds will be showing, there the trees will already be burst­ing into leaf, fresh, green and lovely.