How the stations are made
Each station starts from a seasonal model for its climate type: a temperature curve with the type’s usual mean and range, warmest in its hemisphere’s summer, and a rainfall pattern (wet all year, a wet summer, a wet winter, or almost dry). The values are snapped to the graph’s small squares, then classified with the Köppen-Geiger rules. A station is redrawn unless it lands clearly inside its type, away from every boundary, so the key never depends on which version of the rules your class uses.
A worked example
In set GRAPHS (GCSE), question 1 shows Talhaven, 45° from the equator on the coast. Its temperature line peaks at 17 °C in August and drops to 5 °C in February, so the annual range is 17 − 5 = 12 °C, the warmest months are in the middle of the year (Northern Hemisphere), and the mean is 132 ÷ 12 = 11.0 °C. The tallest bar is December, 148 mm, and the 12 bars add up to 1,220 mm. Rain in every month, a coldest month above 0 °C and a warmest month below 22 °C make it temperate maritime (Köppen Cfb). Open set GRAPHS
What each level asks
| Level | Climate types | Also asks |
|---|---|---|
| KS3 / Middle school | Tropical rainforest, savanna, hot desert, Mediterranean, temperate maritime, humid continental, tundra | Readings, range, total, hemisphere, naming the climate with evidence, comparing two graphs |
| GCSE / IGCSE | Adds tropical monsoon, subarctic and polar ice cap | The mean temperature every time; which of two stations is southern or has a named climate |
| High school / AP Environmental | Adds cold desert, semi-arid steppe and humid subtropical | The biome you would expect |
| Köppen (college) | All 13 types, with full Köppen codes | The arid threshold, the rule for the first letter, the whole code |
Questions
How do you read a climate graph?
The bars show rainfall (or precipitation) for each month, read against the right-hand axis. The line shows the average temperature, read against the left-hand axis. Follow the gridline from the top of a bar across to the right-hand axis, or from a point on the line across to the left-hand axis, and count small squares between the labelled lines.
How do you work out the annual temperature range?
Take the coldest month from the warmest month. If the coldest month is below freezing, the subtraction adds: a warmest month of 17 °C and a coldest of −9 °C give 17 − (−9) = 26 °C.
How do you find the total rainfall and the mean temperature?
Total annual rainfall is all 12 bars added together. Mean annual temperature is all 12 monthly temperatures added, then divided by 12. Halfway between the warmest and coldest month is not the mean.
How can you tell which hemisphere a climate graph is from?
Look at when the line is highest. North of the equator the warmest months are around June to August; south of it they are around December to February. Near the equator the line is almost flat, so the graph alone may not tell you.
How do you describe a climate graph?
Give the overall pattern, then back it with figures from the graph: the temperature range with the warmest and coldest months, the total rainfall, and when the wettest and driest months are. For example: warm summers (17 °C in August), mild winters (5 °C in February), 1,220 mm a year, wettest in December.
What is the Köppen climate classification?
A system that names a climate from monthly temperature and precipitation. The first letter is the group: A tropical, B arid, C temperate, D cold, E polar. Later letters give the dry season and summer heat, as in Cfb for a mild oceanic climate. This site uses the rules in Peel and others (2007).
Sources, checked October 25, 2026: Peel, Finlayson and McMahon (2007), Updated world map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification, Table 1; Beck and others (2018), Present and future Köppen-Geiger climate classification maps at 1-km resolution, Table 2; AQA GCSE Geography 8035 specification, version 1.1 (September 12, 2023, PDF), 3.4 Geographical skills; Cambridge IGCSE Geography 0460 syllabus for 2027 to 2029, version 2 (PDF); Pearson Edexcel GCSE Geography A specification, issue 5 (September 2025, PDF); AP Environmental Science Course and Exam Description, effective fall 2026 (PDF); NGSS MS-ESS2-6 (California Department of Education listing).