Climate
The climate of New Caledonia is tropical, modified by southeasterly trade winds. It is hot and humid. Natural hazards are posed in New Caledonia by cyclones, which occur most frequently between November and March. While rainfall in the neighboring Vanatu islands averages two meters annually, from the north of New Caledonia to the south the rain decreases to a little over 1000mm. The mean annual temperature drops over the same interval from 27.5° to 24.3°C, and seasonality becomes more pronounced. The capital, Nouméa, located on a peninsula on the southwestern coast of the island normally has a dry season which increases in intensity from August until mid-December, ending suddenly with the coming of rain in January. The northeastern coast of the island receives the most rain, with 2400mm having been recorded near sea level in Pouébo.
Read more about this topic: Geography Of New Caledonia
Famous quotes containing the word climate:
“A tree is beautiful, but what’s more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples’ character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe.... What a terrible future!”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“When we consider how much climate contributes to the happiness of our condition, by the fine sensation it excites, and the productions it is the parent of, we have reason to value highly the accident of birth in such a one as that of Virginia.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Ghosts, we hope, may be always with us—that is, never too far out of the reach of fancy. On the whole, it would seem they adapt themselves well, perhaps better than we do, to changing world conditions—they enlarge their domain, shift their hold on our nerves, and, dispossessed of one habitat, set up house in another. The universal battiness of our century looks like providing them with a propitious climate ...”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)