ABSTRACT
Owing to the great range from north to south the severity of the climate varies considerably. In the south snow is hardly known. The winters, although, as in the heart of all great land masses, cold by contrast with the tropical summers, are short, and the cold spells brought by northerly winds soon give way to milder weather. But in the north the mean temperature may remain below freezing for three or four months of the year, when severe gales whip up the thin snow cover in driving storms. The land warms rapidly in the early spring, however, and the summer season is hot with brilliant sunshine, interrupted by occasional showers.
