Weather, Seasons of the year

The weather in Czech Republic
The Czech Republic has a moderate continental climate. A year is divided into four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter. Each season lasts about three months and has its special magic.

Spring begins on the 21st March. Nature begins awake from its long winter sleep and new life begins. Nights get shorter and days get longer. There is much sunshine and it becomes warmer and warmer. The snow melts and rivers and streams swell and there may be floods in the regions through which the rivers pass. The first flowers appear: white snowdrops and snowflakes, dandelions, blue forget-me-nots, coloured crocuses and tulips and violets come into blossom. Birds such as swallows, starlings, and cuckoos come back from the south and we can hear their singing again. The weather in nice, but especially in April is really unpredictable and changeable. The temperatures are often below zero at night although days may be quite warm. Sometimes the sun shines and soon after it sleets. One can’t go out without a raincoat and a thick sweater, boots, a cap or even gloves. But when it clears up, the air is fresh and people go far walks and enjoy the good weather. People often fall in love in spring.

Summer begins on the 21st June. Schoolchildren love this season because they have two months holidays ahead. Everybody set out on journeys and take holidays. The temperature rises to 25oC or more and all people may many fine days in a row. In the morning there is often dew, the sky is clear and bright, it is sunny and dead calm, no wind blows and sometimes we suffer from a heat wave. The weather is sultry, hot and dry. It is unbearable, when the drought lasts too long. People and nature long await rain. In summer rain often comes in the form of storm. The sky sudden clouds over, it gets dark and cools down, a breeze changes into a strong wind. Then there is a crash of thunder and a flash of lightning and heavy downpour. Sometimes it starts hailing. After the storm a rainbow may appear a sky. You can see pools of water and puddles everywhere. Summer is also the time for strawberries, bilberries, raspberries, blackberries and cranberries and the harvest of corn.

Autumn comes on the 23rd September. In autumn the sun sets earlier and rises later and days are shorter. In the gardens it’s time of harvest, we pick apples, pears and plums and gather potatoes and sugar beet. Grass turns yellow and gets dry. The leaves of maples, birches, ashes, beeches, oaks and larches become tinted yellow, orange, brown and red. Conifers are evergreen. Many people go mushrooming. The trees shed their leaves and by November they will be bare. Birds flock together and set on the journey to the south. In autumn the weather is unsettled, the sky is often cloudy, mornings are dull and it looks like rain. It usually does not clear up by day. The temperature drops, it becomes damp, chilly, wet and rainy and it may drizzle. There may pass showers, sometimes it rains on and off for a long time or it rains steadily. The weather is awful, wretched and nasty. The first frosts come and in the morning there may be hoarfrost on the grass, haze or fog and cold wind blows from the north.

According to calendar, winter comes on 21st December. The most important day in winter is Christmas. Typical winter weather brings snowfall, icy wind and hard frosts. We can enjoy skiing and hills covered with a thick layer of fluffy snow and we admire the winter landscape. Children enjoy their winter pleasers such as throwing snowballs, building snowmen, sledging, sliding and skating on lakes. The temperature sometimes drops some 20 below zero. Then the snow crunches underfoot, the hands get numb and fingers tingles with cold. If people go out without caps and mittens or gloves, they can suffer from frostbite. The roads become icy and slippery and someone can skid easily. Icicles hang from the roof. Gardeners often become worried about their fruit trees and gamekeepers about the game, which may freeze to death. Finally the frosts let up and the thaw sets in, the snow melts and paths are full of mud and slush. And the spring comes. Spring comes earlier to the lowland. I think living in a country where there are four distinct seasons is much more interesting than living someplace where the weather doesn't change much. What the weather will be in the following days we can find out by weather forecast. The information about the weather is in every media.
I like every season of the year, but my most favourite seasons are summer and spring. Spring is wonderful because of its magic, when everything wakes up. And summer because we have holidays and everyone can enjoy life without school.

The weather in Great Britain
The weather in Britain is slightly milder than the weather in the Czech Republic. This is partly because Britain is surrounded by water. The water helps to control the temperatures and to keep them from being too extreme but it also contributes to the amount of rain falls in Britain. In Britain they also have four distinct seasons. The winter has more snow than we have here but it isn't so cold. In spring it rains a lot but there are also sunny days. In summer the temperature can be over 30 degrees but that doesn't happen very often. In autumn there is also quite a bit of rain and cool days. In Britain the days during summer are slightly longer than they are here and the days in winter are slightly shorter. On average the Czech Republic has more days with sunshine than in Britain.