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I am creating a fictional continent on a fictional Earth-like world that is mostly ocean. The planet is the same size as Earth with the same gravity level, orbiting in an equivalent region of its host star. There are only two continents on the planet, my continent and another continent (about the same size) that is roughly at its antipode. All else is ocean.

Here is my continent. Ignore the coloration of land. Latitude, size, and elevation are shown in the picture:

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ What climates? Probably all of them across varying regions. Do you want us to color code your map with probable climate types? A continent stretching from 25th N to 55th S is quite big. Can you be more specific? Like, perhaps focusing on a specific region with a specific geography? $\endgroup$
    – BMF
    Aug 23, 2020 at 23:06
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    $\begingroup$ @BMF, I want my map color coded with Köppen climate types. I want something like this: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/… $\endgroup$
    – Galactic
    Aug 23, 2020 at 23:13
  • $\begingroup$ Ah, I see, thanks for clarifying. I recently did some climatology for my world, with some more research I might be able to do a decent answer here. $\endgroup$
    – BMF
    Aug 23, 2020 at 23:16
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    $\begingroup$ Not an answer because I'm not going to do the work for you, but I would strongly encourage you to recreate your map in Azgaar's FMG... and then turn on the "biomes" layer, which will provide you with an answer. Seriously, Azgaar's FMG is great; check it out! Pertinently, it has logic to guess at all sorts of climate-related information based on the topology and basic information about the planet (which you can tweak). $\endgroup$
    – Matthew
    Aug 24, 2020 at 2:07
  • $\begingroup$ You need the dimensions in kilometers/miles before anyone can give you an actuate answer. $\endgroup$
    – Mon
    Aug 24, 2020 at 10:21

1 Answer 1

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Winds

I've taken this image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevailing_winds, which gives a rough overview of the default winds that a planet gets from rotation:

enter image description here

So taking this diagram and applying it to your map, these are the prevailing low altitude winds (arrows are side effect of me using mspaint, not an indication of strength):

enter image description here

Now that we know the wind behavior, we can predict the rain behavior:

Rain

Winds pick up moisture over the ocean, and drop it when they hit land. They're much more likely to drop it when they hit high ground.

Green will get decent rains, red will get minimal rain. Water will flow down from the mountains and may run through the red land, making it fertile. If the river doesn't run through there, it'll be desert. I suspect it wont, as there's a quicker path to the sea to the south east.

enter image description here

Temperature

Your continent has extremes of temperature:

  • The red circle in the middle lacks precipitation and a cooling sea breeze. In summer, it'll be similar to the nullabor dessert in Australia, which can hit 49.9 degrees C in the shade, this will occur at the north end of the red annotation. However in winter, it'll get cold enough for constant snow covering, especially in the hilly southeast. (Australia has a ski resort ~150km inland at 35 degrees south at an elevation of 1500 meters)
  • The blue lines are going to be constantly cold but unlikely the freeze. The northerly ones may hit 40 degrees C in summer if the winds change for a day, but are typically going to be looking at sea breeze driven temperatures below 20, winter max temps in single digets. Snow may happen but rare.
  • Green circles are going to be pretty nice, by Australian standards. Summer maxes in low 40s, Winter maxes in low teens.
  • White circles are going to be covered in snow in the winter, and see summer maxes in the high 30s.

enter image description here

Other

I've labelled a few other things on the map. You'd have rivers coming down from the hills, I've taken a guess at the paths. I've also marked where I'd expect settlements, ports, and farmland.

The best harbour is that southern cove I've labelled, unless the rivers are deep enough that an ocean going ship can travel upstream, in which case it'll be within the south-western town on the river there.

The red area will be a bit like tornado alley. Moist air coming from the north will hit dry air going east. You may also get "horizontal tornados" off the minor mountain range at sunrise.

The yellow coastline will get the odd cyclone every few years, but in general this landmass is too far south

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Pretty good. I expected much of the same thing, but I wanted a second opinion. $\endgroup$
    – Galactic
    Aug 28, 2020 at 19:07
  • $\begingroup$ @Galactic, seriously, did you mock this up in Azgaar's yet? If not, I can't recommend it strongly enough for what you're trying to accomplish. It won't precisely spell things out for you like this answer, but it will give you a ton of information about precipitation, where the rivers are, temperature, biomes and things of that nature. $\endgroup$
    – Matthew
    Aug 28, 2020 at 21:17
  • $\begingroup$ No, I did some research of my own and got a the same conclusion. I just wanted a second answer to make sure I was right (I messed up twice before and people said my Worldbuilding was flawed). $\endgroup$
    – Galactic
    Aug 28, 2020 at 21:47

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