Northern Mountian Climate / Geology

[toboe_lonewolf]

Setting: What I'm trying to figure out. Earth-ish. Some magic thrown in

Comments

[acsumama]

The amount of snow is going to depend on the presence of large bodies of water -- the moisture has to come from somewhere. Kamchatka is a peninsula with seas on either side. If your area is a large landmass, or if the only ocean is frozen most of the year (like our Arctic Ocean). If you look at this map http://www.climate-charts.com/World-Climate-Maps.html#rain you'll see that northern Canada and most of Siberia have relatively low precipitation. Northern Europe is rainier/snowier because the prevailing winds are coming in off the North Atlantic, which is unfrozen because of a warm ocean current. You can still have nasty windstorms and blistering cold, though, even if you're not getting a lot of new precipitation.

People would almost certainly live in the valleys -- for protection from wind, and for the slightly warmer microclimates.

[toboe_lonewolf]

Hm, I haven't been envisioning my story setting with that much sea stuff, so if the seas mean that Kamchatka is sort of a special case than I probably shouldn't be using it as my basis. At least this means there isn't going to be as much rain as I thought there would be!

I know people would definitely prefer the valleys, but I also have a constant danger of aerial attacks, and a large bandit presence. In which case, I'm thinking that there is some impetus to drive them into the mountains, although I'm not entirely sure if A) that is an impetus (not exactly sure if it's safer on a mountainside against an aerial attack) and B) it's enough impetus.

[marycatelli]

Currents in the ocean also matter. There are places in Canada, on Hudson Bay, where they have a lot of trouble with polar bears. At the same latitude in England, they grow palm trees. The culprit is the Gulf Stream.

[marycatelli]

Modern thing. A botanical garden if I remember right.

[badgermirlacca]

Remember too that one of the features of blizzards is high winds. If you've got a lot of flat land and then a mountain range, the weather on the flat-land side may be very different than the weather on the other side of that range. Also, valleys and canyons can have a nasty habit of funnelling winds, to the detriment of people living within or at either end

[toboe_lonewolf]

Sweet, so I can have valleys themselves that are more hospitable than others. I knew some parts of a mountain are more favorable than others, but didn't know that valley conditions themselves could be as different. Gives a bit more reason for some parts of the land where people prefer to be carved into the mountainside rather than straight in the wind tunnel!