Talk:Humid subtropical climate

Edit war brewing

How does one report the outbreak of an edit war? An editor does not leave edit summaries or sign Talk page comments. They have a Richmond, Virginia fixation, and keep removing Richmond from the article, except when they add it as a "northern tier" humid subtropical climate US city.--Quisqualis (talk) 11:19, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

It is best to just leave the article the way it is. Richmond is still mentioned and it has sources to back it up. Hopefully, another user will notice if anything is wrong. Musicalheart1 (talk) 03:41, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Richmond is now mentioned incorrectly as a "northern tier" city in the zone. I suspect that the actions of the IP in question may have been the driving force behind the recent mention of protecting the page (since deleted).--Quisqualis (talk) 03:54, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

How is Richmond incorrectly mentioned?Newcourtier (talk) 04:01, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I just checked the sources provided and while Richmond may not be in the northern tier of the climate zone, its snowfall amounts and plant hardiness zone put its climate in line with areas such as Philadelphia and Baltimore more so than Charlotte or Birmingham. It is probably more accurate to say that it is an outlier more so than a Northern tier city due to its inland position.Newcourtier (talk) 04:09, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

If this is very concerning to you, then you should email the main Wikimedia help line. Hopefully, someone will sort this out. Edit warring is highly frowned upon. I am not sure why this user is hung up on Richmond. However, they are unfairly making false edits and need to be reported.Arbuttle918 (talk) 04:19, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

A quick read of the second paragraph of the third section of the article will find "the climate can also be found in the Mid-Atlantic, primarily Virginia, the lower elevations of West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Washington, D.C., New Jersey, southeastern Pennsylvania, and far southern New York, specifically New York City and sections of Long Island. It can also be found in the Midwest, primarily in the central and southern portions of Kansas and Missouri, and far southern portions of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. If you wish to call all the italicised locales the "Northern Tier", then how is Richmond, out of all the other "southern" humid subtropical cities in North America, a member of the northern tier?

It might seem that I am splitting hairs to remove Richmond, but an even greater amount of hair-splitting would have accompanied its inclusion. A review of the IP's edit history sees Richmond removed from at least one other WP article, List of locations with a subtropical climate . I'd like to know how this very stubborn IP editor is improving Wikipedia. --Quisqualis (talk) 04:35, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Please stop changing sourced content and adding unsourced content to the article. Richmond receive more snowfall and has cooler winter temperatures than the other cities mentioned as referenced in the sources I provided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1003:B014:10CD:8DA6:DE79:C89F:1A7E (talk) 04:44, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

"Changing sourced content and adding unsourced content" describes your entire Wikipedia career, IP editor. Please don't throw your own faults onto your fellow editors.

As Newcourtier has stated, Richmond is an outlier. It is in the American South, and not a midatlantic city, yet has colder winters than coastal Southern states. You will have to write some cogent text rather than just swapping words and numbers around. If you find this an impediment, just request an edit by another editor, here on the Talk page.--Quisqualis (talk) 05:23, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Richmond is a mid-Atlantic City. I added sources for the content that I addded. As Newcortier states, Richmond’s climate is more akin to cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore rather than inland southern cities such as Charlotte and Birmingham. Richmond has more than three times the snowfall of any of the inland southern cities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1003:B457:64CA:E41D:D6A0:AC3E:37BB (talk) 06:02, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I have a PHD in Climatology....TRUST ME....Koppen NEVER used the term "subtropical"!!!!
In the original Koppen climate classification, the "C" group or "TEMPERATE Rainy climates were grouped as all locations with the coldest month have a mean temperature of -3 C (26. 8 F) or higher....but below 18 C (64.4 F). Many, many, many, climatologists from 1899 to 1960 (including Landsburg) complained that Koppens "C" zone was far to broad, cities like Brisbane and Charleston were grouped with cities like London, New York City, or St. Louis.
Trewartha sought to change this MAJOR issue...and created a "subtropical" zone, just above 25 N/S latitude. In this zone(from 25 to around 35 N/S latitude). In this new zone, climates are termed subtropical when they have 8 or more months with a mean temp of higher than 10 C (50 F). Trewartha did this so warm temperate climates like NYC or Milan would NOT be in the subtropical zone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:188:180:F040:B5DD:B7C9:7770:F678 (talk) 16:09, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

You might actually have a PhD in climatology but it doesn't seem to be doing you much good. If you're from the Gulf Coast you're probably happy to see New York and DC removed from the "Cf(a)" climate in Trewartha's system. However, Trewartha put us in the same climate type as Scotland, British Columbia, and other absurdly cold places where the warmest summer month is colder than October in the Mid-Atlantic. Moreover, even in Trewartha's system NYC and DC are both less than 1 degree Fahrenheit away from actually being humid subtropical, and you will probably see that transition in your lifetime. So please, calm down and understand that you cannot make a rigid system with a fixed number of little "categories" and have it adequately qualitatively describe something as variable and unique as the climate of any given place. Even the north shore and south shore of Long Island have appreciably different climate characteristics. 96.242.144.8 (talk) 18:54, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

A suggestion

While a lot of suggestions on this page and its archives are not possible (they are for redrawing climate maps in terms of personal opinion), I do think they point to a problem. Köppen is treated not as the most common way of classifying climates, but as the arbiter of truth of what each climate category entails. This is not how climate classification works; in fact this is not how constructed categories work. A wider set of definitions (from the major climate systems we present in the city climate template, for example) could better describe the situation at hand. Of course, Köppen should still be central to these, it is the most popular, but at least reconfiguring the examples to say "X cities are unanimously considered this climate; some classifications also include Y cities", and widening definitions to at least Köppen AND Trewartha should resolve a lot of our problems. I'm obviously suggesting this for any climate page of course, but this page seems to be the most frequently disputed. Uness232 (talk) 14:16, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

This may be a good idea. We could break things up by climate classification, or by locality. I think the former is less cluttered. Chumzwumz68 (talk) 19:52, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

If we start adding different climate classifications, this page (and other climate pages) would become extremely complicated and unclear. Koppen's system is not perfect but still is the most commonly used system. Also other climate classifications systems have flaws. G. Capo (talk) 16:40, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

@G. Capo: On the "complicated and unclear" argument, I would say that this is rather more confusing. The issue is that climate categorization is conceptual and mostly intangible; while authors might agree or disagree on certain tangible statistics or markers that make a climate subtropical, continental etc. There is no such thing as a tangible climate zone. And the proper encyclopedic thing to do when dealing with concepts like these, is not to take the most popular categorization and treat it as truth, but rather to survey some of the more popular definitions. I think what is effectively causing this article's size is the lengthy section on the specific places one might find humid subtropical climates according to one classification. I would propose these sections instead:

-

Lede: Reconfigured for the rest of the article, but the main idea should remain unchanged

(Replace Characteristics with the below section)

X climate classification: One or two paragraphs on how it is defined in this classification, around two paragraphs on the major locations in which it is found (also looking at differences and similarities).

(Repeat for 3-4 other classifications max)

(Remove the locations section)

-

This set up is, in fact, shorter than the current article, which ponders on the features of each and every locality one may find this climate. I would argue that this is best done on the city climate sections, and city climate sections have every right to only use Köppen, summary style and all. This article should be a survey of definitions and usage, not a ponderous deep dive into Köppen's idea on what a climate zone is, which can also be done on Köppen climate classification. I understand that this would take time to mirror this to other climate pages, but a slow process of doing this is better than the article's current state in my humble opinion.

On your second point, I am aware. This does not change my argument, however, which is not (and is not even close to) the idea that Köppen is not good, or that other classifications are better. My argument simply challenges the disparity I see between the handling of climate zones when compared to other conceptual categories. Uness232 (talk) 17:23, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

We agree that Koppen system is the most commonly used system and this page is technically a Koppen page. This article clearly states (or should clearly state) that Koppen defined the Cfa climate as having its warmest monthly average temp at/above 22 degrees Celsius and the coldest monthly average temp at the coldest either 0 or -3 Celsius. We're using the 0 degree Celsius threshold for examples because that clearly qualifies a location as Cfa. There is a brief description of Trewartha's system of this climate because some felt that is a better description of humid subtropical climates. In my humble opinion, that alone muddied the waters. A lot of the objections were some variation of "I do not care what the data shows, I feel that this city with a colder winter climate is not humid subtropical."

Perhaps the best way to approach this is to establish Trewartha Climate pages for each of its categories and link it to the Trewartha Climate page. This would help differentiate the two climate systems. G. Capo (talk) 22:20, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

@G. Capo: I would assume that a Trewartha climate page would make things more confusing than both of our suggestions. The idea that every climate page be duplicated is fine by me when using a classification based naming system, but a classification-based naming system would then cause an incredibly large amount of disambiguation pages.

I have two further disagreements with what you have said. One is that this is "technically a Köppen page." The problem with this is that this is nominally not a Köppen page. It is not called Cfa and Cwa climate (Köppen); rightfully so in my opinion, as that would be a confusing naming convention. This is describing the term humid subtropical. The idea, then, that even stating a Trewartha definition is harmful, is not very productive.

What vexes me more, however, is your insistence on speaking of data independent of classification. A climate chart alone can not show that a city has a humid subtropical climate in the absence of a classification scheme. It would give you its mean temperature, precipitation, sunshine, etc; but not its climate type. For that one must find definitions, or at least convention, of classifying climate types. Most of these comments are worded less than ideally, I'll give you that, but some do rely on other climatologist's opinions. It's not just that they feel that, say NYC, Milan or Budapest isn't humid subtropical, it's that they are agreeing (some more knowledgeably than others) with climatologists who have concluded their study thinking that they aren't. That would include Trewartha, Strahler and Holdridge for example. What you inadvertently seem to do when you claim that these people do not care about data is only accept the Köppen classification as "data" while other classifications are "feeling". This is not how classification works, in any field open to classification; say continents. Wikipedia doesn't just cover the seven continent model since that is most common in English-speaking countries; it covers at least 5 different models. This would be the balanced way to cover any classification related topic. Note the most common, note the more popular alternatives. Uness232 (talk) 07:06, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

@G. Capo Trying to revive this conversation; any objections, or should I progress to a way of finding a wider consensus, whichever of these it may be? Uness232 (talk) 09:13, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

@Uness232 Two responses...First, this was intended to be a Koppen page...look at the links below the article. The info on Trewartha was added to point out that the term "humid subtropical climate" apparently was first used under the Trewartha system.

Second despite its flaws, the Koppen system is still the most widely used climate classification system. As a result there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Wiki articles that reference the Koppen system. Most people are at least okay with utilizing it, because it's a "common currency." Most if not all of the other Koppen climate pages do not reference other systems. Koppen's humid subtropical climate page should primarily discuss Koppen's description of a Cfa/Cwa climate.

The short answer: For clarity sake, if you want to create a page of for example Trewartha's climate version of a humid subtropical climate, feel free to do so. It should probably be titled Humid Subtropical Climate (Climate Classification System). That should be a separate entry from the Koppen version, because its parameters are noticeably different from Koppen's. That page should be linked to the climate system page(s) that it utilizes. This way we do not confuse the reader. G. Capo (talk) 05:12, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

@G. Capo I am sorry, but you have not addressed any of my concerns.

1) It does not particularly concern me that this was supposed to be a Köppen page; this argument is on what it should be, now.

2) Another example, most pages which are not the continent page itself use the 7 continent model. That's fine and understandable. However, the continent page is different, because it discusses the concept, and my argument is that we should impart to readers that climate classification is a type of conceptualization.

3) Also, in almost all cases where Köppen is linked, it is qualified as Köppen. See New York City, Tokyo, Paris, and many more. To say that including other classifications would confuse the reader is strange to me, considering my suggested setup is both shorter and more categorized. The idea that a reader can not recognize a bold, heading-sized text reading Köppen climate classification as what they need to read in order to get the information about Köppen is beyond perplexing to me. Other classifications have sources, are routinely used in "Climate of" pages etc. Why not here of all places?

I just want an argument on why this (and other climate pages) ought not to be a generalized survey of the most common classifications, that does not verge on belittling the average Wikipedia reader in the expense of everything else. Uness232 (talk) 07:05, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

I think you stated the page’s problem in your first response. Intention to make it a Koppen climate page while the term was not used in Koppen’s original works and was introduced after 80 years by Trewartha. PAper GOL (talk) 10:49, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

For the record, I do not object to the inclusion of Köppen in this article. A consensus exists in reliable sources to equate Köppen's "hot summer humid temperate climate" with a humid subtropical climate, correctly or not. My problem is how climate classification is handled on Wikipedia in general. Uness232 (talk) 14:03, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

You're right. Your first option was a good idea in my opinion, though I don't know if it makes the article more confusing or not.

Why not add more information about Trewartha classification to this article? In a way that it will not make the article more complex. PAper GOL (talk) 18:46, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

@ PAper GOL As I said before, I believe the solution here is to create a separate page for Trewartha's description of the climate. There are a number of locations that falls under the humid subtropical climate under Koppen's definition that would not fall under that category under Trewartha version of the climate. Philadelphia for example is humid subtropical under Koppen's system and apparently oceanic under Trewartha's system. If I'm clicking on the humid subtropical climate link on the Philadelphia page, it should not lead me to an article with a detailed description of Trewartha's version of the humid subtropical climate. If I click on oceanic climate on that page, it should not lead me to an article with a detailed description of Koppen's version of the oceanic climate. For the record, Trewartha's version of the oceanic climate is also noticeably different from Koppen's version. Discussing two noticeably different classification systems here on the same page only muddies the waters, which irks me to no end. G. Capo (talk) 05:48, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@Uness232 I'm curious...what do you propose? How should Wikipedia articles handle climate classifications? Should we use 4+ different climate classifications or should we use none...or should it be somewhere in between? G. Capo (talk) 05:54, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@G. Capo My suggestion was quite clear as I outlined it back in July; here it is again:

Lede: Reconfigured for the rest of the article, but the main idea should remain unchanged

(Replace Characteristics with the below section)

X climate classification: One or two paragraphs on how it is defined in this classification, around two paragraphs on the major locations in which it is found (also looking at differences and similarities).

(Repeat for 3-4 other classifications max) --> this would be dependent on which classifications have sources and use this climate type.

(Remove the locations section)

This is around 10-15 paragraphs of material, smaller than this article, and could readily be expanded upon, but is a good and simple starting point, and is not tough to navigate.

Creating separate pages for different climate classifications would cause a superfluous amount of disambiguation pages, while misleading the reader on the messiness of climate categories.

Discussing two noticeably different classification systems here on the same page only muddies the waters, which irks me to no end.

And this, I find, is the main problem with your position. Discussing the existing complexity of a term is not muddying the waters, it is to clarify it. Uness232 (talk) 08:22, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I guess that is where we fundamentally disagree. If a researcher is reading about how Shanghai has a humid subtropical climate under Koppen's system but then clicks on humid subtropical climate link in that article and he/she is now reading about Trewartha's version of the climate, I can easily see that individual getting confused. If you create a separate page entitled for example Humid Subtropical Climate (Trewartha System) and properly link articles to that article, you significantly decrease opportunities for confusion. Also, there should not be an issue with "disambiguity" if the article is properly linked. Finally, you know well that 10-15 paragraphs of material can easily be expanded to 25-30. The best course of action, to avoid any confusion, is to create a separate entry for the Trewartha version of the Humid Subtropical Climate. As for the other climate types, which I really do not believe we should include as this...again...muddies the waters, if someone has the urge to create new Wiki pages for them them, they should feel free to do so. However, they should be separate entries

Other than an article being accurate, the most important thing to me about an article in Wiki is its clarity. I want to readily and easily understand what is being discussed. Your proposed method does the exact opposite. G. Capo (talk) 22:00, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@G. Capo I do not see how that would be. Shanghai is actually an outlier in terms of wording, and even then Cfa is linked to the Köppen classification; and furthermore, Shanghai would be humid subtropical by Trewartha as well. The vast majority of climate sections (see NYC, Tokyo, Paris, London and more) specify that their usage refers to Köppen, and specify when it does not. And if you are claiming that users can not navigate to a specific section in a page, I don't find that particularly believable.

I generally fail to understand your insistence that reflecting the very real (and generally non-technical) complexity of climate classification will cause confusion. Wikipedia readily does this in most conceptual categories (from continents to religion). Sometimes, the waters are muddy; sometimes things are not as simple as "this is what X means and everyone agrees on it". Even if this was to create slightly less clarity, it would very much make up for it in terms of explanatory value. I also want to remind you that this page is over the 30 paragraph limit that you asserted would create a problem, and limiting page sizes can be done by consensus.

I think this desperately needs some kind of dispute resolution at this point. We are running around in circles. Uness232 (talk) 22:30, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

If we are running in circles, why not talk about the reason each solution causes "confusion"? Or how the water is muddy? This, I think, should be discussed first. PAper GOL (talk) 05:46, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@PAper GOL I feel that I already explained this at length, but I suppose I can follow this up in a different way. Climate classification is just and only that; classification. It is not made up of statements of fact, nor is it a one-to-one recreation of climate realities. It is not the rules of mathematics, and it is almost as much semantics as it is climatology.

For example, if one was to describe Istanbul's climate with as many words as they like; they could come up with a very detailed and accurate picture; as I've tried to do here, for example. But that's not the job of a climate classification, which has to classify climates in no more than a few words. As I've noted in the page I've linked above, there are 6 different phrases that have been used to classify Istanbul's climate, most of them contradictory.

If everything could be wrapped in a neat little Köppen-box, why is everyone disagreeing? Why do many in the Pacific Northwest - even in universities - praise the objective superiority of Trewartha as a more "real-world climate classification", while us in Turkey find it comical that Diyarbakır is "temperate", while Istanbul is "subtropical"? And why does Strahler, the climate classification that many in the Turkish scene portray as the most accurate of etic classifications, think that Rasht is desert?

The answer is that climate classification is complex, difficult, and incompatible with the "matter-of-factly" way in which @G. Capo wants pages to be organized.

In terms of confusion, I genuinely fail to understand how a sentence like: Under the Köppen climate classification, New York City has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa), and is the northernmost major city on the North American continent with this categorization.

could possibly not clear up the fact that the classification which one must navigate to in the humid subtropical page is the Köppen one.

All of this has been said before however. Uness232 (talk) 10:01, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, You clearly expressed your issue this time.

But Capo may not want a "matter-of-factly" way for calssification. He may insist on the most commonly used system for some reasons. You were talking about Strahler's, whose classification is almost not explained at all in Wikipedia, that is a problem on its own. Same with Troll. And honestly I know nothing about them. If we want to add information about other classifications, we need an overview of those classifications themselves. PAper GOL (talk) 16:52, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I read the Istanbul page, I think it is well-written, including the classification section.

But it also shows that one would need some information about these classification systems. Strahler links to the river system rather than climate and Neef shows a small page with a list of books.PAper GOL (talk) 17:10, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll let Capo speak for themself on that first one.

On your second claim; true. In fact I am uncomfortable with including Neef at all due to lack of sources. However, there are at least 5 classifications (Köppen, Trewartha, Holdridge, Alisov and Thornthwaite - my inclusion of Strahler was to demonstrate a point) that have good enough sourcing to be on a Wikipedia page. Others may be added, but I am not familiar enough with Troll-Paffen for example.

These are the ones that have been covered by sources at least somewhat extensively, and should be given some space (even if less space than Köppen) in pages relating to climate types. And whether the climate classification pages or the specific climate types should come first, the answer is that while having classification pages first would be nice, it ideally should not matter, as long as things start being done. In general there's no need to rush, but with stuff like this perhaps coverage of climate classification on Wikipedia can get more descriptive and productive over the years. If at all possible, I would also be for the creation of a guideline for climate-related pages, with input from the entire community. Uness232 (talk) 17:43, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Separate Cwa (Subtropical monsoon) climate from this article

I would suggest to separate Koppen: Cwa from this article due the big differences between the subtropical monsoon climate and the humid subtropical. Humid subtropical generally is colder and is wet all-year round with a classic 4 season pattern of summer, autumn, winter, spring. Cwa is generally warmer, has a pronounced dry season and has a 3 season pattern of summer, monsoon, winter. RayAdvait (talk) 15:46, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

Suggestions: to add the subcontinental climate to this article

This article has always been the subject of controversy and periodic edit wars because it seems truly wrong and illogical to define places and areas of the world as subtropical that are not subtropical in any way, such as NYC, Philadelphia, Milan, Vienna.. To highlight a few points: 1. The term subtropical has a very precise meaning: it literally means close to the tropics: geographically, climatically, and in terms of vegetation. 2. To describe the climate of all regions of the world that fall within the CFA climate type, the term subtropical has never been used by Koppen or any other climatologist in the world. If anything, it has been used by other climatologists (e.g., Trewartha, Griffiths, Thornthwaite) precisely to describe some regions and exclude others. 3. The basic misunderstanding appears to have arisen from the fact that since the early 2000s some American school textbooks—but not official climatology— have reported a further and extreme simplification (in an already broad and simplified climate group), merging the two original Koppen types, CWA and CFA, into the term (humid) subtropical, thus sensibly describing only a portion of the regions of the world that fall within the CFA type but not the others. 4. Question: Why does this article stick to simple American school textbooks and ignore the original description and terms of the CFA type developed by Koppen and its successors, or more accurate descriptions developed by official climatology around the world? 5. The climate of the areas of the world that fall within the CFA group located at latitudes far from the tropics (and well above 35st parallel), which are not only on the eastern coasts but also inland of the continents, and which have winter and summer temperatures significantly lower than those of the subtropics, is described by climatologists and scientists around the world simply as Subcontinental. A climate close to a typically continental Dfa type with snow and frost in winter, no dry seasons, and continental vegetation but that doesn't reach the extreme winter temperatures of Dfa type. And that certainly has nothing to do with climates that can be defined as subtropical. Typical examples include the Po Valley in northern Italy (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344406425_Preliminary_Analysis_of_Relationships_between_COVID19_and_Climate_Morphology_and_Urbanization_in_the_Lombardy_Region_Northern_Italy), Slovenia and part of the inland Balkan regions, and parts of inland France that is the climate of inland areas of western and central continental Europe. And also of inland and northeastern areas of the USA https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Climograph-of-the-subcontinental-climate-climate-type-at-Farm2-Reprinted-with_fig2_359956493. 6 Therefore, in climatology, a simple and immediate solution already exists to correct this semantic distortion and improve the article: if one wants to label the CFA type of some areas of the world as humid subtropical, then it is inevitable to label as Humid Subcontinental the CFA type of other areas of the world which have very different climatic characteristics even though they fall within the CFA macrotype. The correct title of the article describing the CFA type should therefore be: Humid subtropical climate or Humid subcontinental climate making an internal distinction within the CFA type as is already done for articles on all other Köppen climate types (e.g., CFB). The only alternative to this would be to describe the entire CFA type more simply as Koppen (and his successors) have always described it: Humid temperate with hot summer climate, without further distinctions. Swan 73 (talk) 23:03, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

@Swan 73 The problem with this suggestion is relatively simple; Wikipedia uses WP:RS and while many sources use the word "subcontinental" to refer to those regions, none use that term in relation to the Köppen zone. The difference with Cfb is that the subtropical highland climate is featured in published research in relation to Köppen. Uness232 (talk) 05:43, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Here's an example of a Wikipedia source that uses the subcontinental term related with Koppen classification about CFA type in the case of northern Italy climate:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080522014624/http://www.isac.cnr.it/aerobio/aia/e_AIACLIM.html

And it's one of the most authoritative and accredited sources, namely The Italian Association of Aerobiology (AIA) c/o Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate-CNR.

But there are other authoritative international sources too.

And let's not forget that the first authoritative source in relation to Köppen to precisely excluding the non-subtropical regions considered as such in this article, is Trewartha that instead correctly define the humid subtropical climate.

And the other most important climatologists in the world have done the same with their respective classifications: Griffiths, Troll/Paffen, and Thornthwaite. Althoug not in relation to Koppen, they have all defined regions with a subtropical climate unambiguously and differently than this article.

Therefore, to resolve this obvious distortion we must distinguish within the CFA group the (smaller) subcontinental type from the (bigger) subtropical type because they are climates with profoundly different temperatures, latitudes and vegetation, as global climatology, geography, semantics, and logic teach us. Swan 73 (talk) 18:24, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@Swan 73 The source you have is not a source that uses Köppen proper. It's using a modified version of Köppen, which does not even define a Köppen zone as subcontinental unambiguously; instead it defines an area which it calls subcontinental within the broader Cf (not necessarily Cfa) zone, specifically for Italy and not for general. It does not systematically treat Köppen in any way, and in its unsystematic treatment subcontinental is one of three (not two!) words it uses to describe Cf. What we would need is something more concrete.

Beyond this, I agree with what you're saying about Köppen-centrism. But please look at this discussion, I had suggested we move away from are reliance on Köppen on these pages. There was opposition, and it went nowhere. As it stands this is primarily a Köppen page and there is nothing we can do about that.

And lastly, I want to say that in climate classification, there are no 'distortions' and no real 'truths', only conceptualizations. We are, for better or worse, focusing on one specific conceptualization right now, and that has set rules and WP:COMMONNAMEs for its climate zones. Uness232 (talk) 01:16, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Removing record for Lismore

The previous edit for this page gave Lismore as an example of variations of rainfall experienced in the humid subtropical climate zone on the east coast of Australia, stating Lismore recorded a rainfall of 2,780 millimetres (109 in) in 1950. However per the citation , the recorded rainfall for Lismore in 1950 was 2074mm.

The edit was several years old, so I wanted to see if the Lismore floods of 2022 contributed to a higher rainfall total that year. They didn't, but the total for 1950 wasn't as high as what was in the Wikipedia article either. I've updated the article with statistics showing rainfall variations in Sydney. Lorelai Bennet (talk) 18:49, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Also the previous edit stated Newcastle is approx 200km or 120 miles north of Sydney. Per Google maps https://www.google.com/maps/place/Australia+Post+-+Sydney+GPO/@-33.867779,151.2051788,17z/data=!3m2!4b1!5s0x6b12ae1523936b57:0x5e5e705df21f647a!4m6!3m5!1s0x6b12ae407b4f9857:0x3fca8fc0cbc5c53b!8m2!3d-33.867779!4d151.2077537!16s%2Fm%2F03c5l30?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDIwNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D, from Newcastle Post Office to the Sydney GPO is 117km (it's more like 160km by road, but weather doesn't have to take exits and freeways) Lorelai Bennet (talk) 19:02, 7 February 2026 (UTC)