These figures clearly show the continental character of the Ukrainian climate. The influences of the Atlantic Ocean, which still strongly dominate the climate of Central Europe, become slight in the Ukraine. Particularly, the southern part of the Ukraine is almost unaffected by the mitigating influence of a nearby ocean, and the necessary result is the low winter-temperatures. But the continental character of the Ukrainian climate is, nevertheless, not so strongly marked as that of the Russian or Siberian climate. Kamishin, Semipalatinsk, Blagovieshchensk, situated on the same degree of latitude as Kiev, have a January mean of —11.6°, 17.5° and —25.4°, and a July mean of +21.3°, respectively. The influences of the Black Sea, altho in general not great, are at least unmistakable in the coastal region of the Ukraine.
The difference between the mean of the coldest and that of the warmest month is slighter in the Ukraine than in Russia or Siberia, to be sure, but it is, at any rate, considerable. Only in the Mediterranean climate of Southern Crimea does the difference amount to as little as 20°. The rest of Crimea, the sub-Caucasian country and the northwestern part of the Ukraine as far as Kiev and Uman have a difference of 20° — 25°, Lemberg, for example, 22.6°, Pinsk 24°, Chernivtzi 25.1°, Kiev 25.2°.
On the other hand, the southern and the entire eastern part of the Ukraine, especially east of the Dnieper, shows a considerable difference, from 25° to 30°, as for example, Kiev 25.4°, Odessa and Mikolaiv 26.3°, Poltava 27.3°, Kharkiv and Tahanroh over 29°, Luhan and Katerinoslav 30.4°.
The winter appears severe in the entire Ukraine, with the exception of Crimea and the sub-Caucasian country.
The January mean temperature of — 4° to — 8° then obtains in the entire wide territory. Lemberg has — 8°. Even the southern lands of the Ukraine have a low mean for January, for example, Odessa — 3.7° (Kishiniv — 3.5°), while Kamenetz owes its exceptionally high mean, — 3.3°, to its sheltered location in a "yar." The January isotherms run from northwest to southeast in Ukrainian territory, in a wide curve, which becomes increasingly flat toward the southeast. For this reason the cold in the Ukraine grows in intensity not in a northern but in a northeastern direction. The mean annual minimum almost everywhere exceeds — 20° (Lemberg — 19.2°, Chernivtzi —2 1.1°, Tarnopol —23.4°, Kiev —23.2°, Mikolaiv — 21.4°, Luhan — 28.4°). The absolute extremes attain very high values. The absolute minimum amounts to —30° in Mikolaiv and Odessa, —33.1° in Kiev, —34° in Ternopil, — 35° in Lemberg and Czernowitz, — 40.8° in Luhan.
The Ukrainian winter is far less variable than the Central European or even the Russian. Only in the northwestern borderlands of the Ukraine does a thaw, brought by the Atlantic winds, frequently appear. The duration of the frost on the Pontian shore is at most two months, in the Pontian steppe-plain and the southern spurs of the plateau groups three months, in all the rest of the Ukraine three and a half. Only in the northeastern borderlands of the Ukraine, located on the spurs of the Central Russian elevation and the Donetz, does the frost period extend over four months.
In Southern Ukraine the winter is followed directly by a sunny spring, with dry east winds, which partly degenerate into sand-storms (sukhovi). Everywhere else in the Ukraine wet, sloppy weather follows the steps of the receding winter. Toward the northwest it continues longer and longer. The sloppy weather of spring consists of a constantly varying succession of frost, thaw, snowstorm, rain and sunshine, ending in the southern part of the Ukraine usually in the middle of April, in the northern and northwestern part at the end of April or even at the beginning of May. The actual spring following thereon is very short thruout the Ukraine and usually lasts three weeks, except in the northwest, where it continues thru the entire month of May. The mean April temperature is everywhere higher than the annual mean (Lemberg +7.8°, Tarnopol and Kiev +6.9°, Czernowitz and Odessa +8.6°, Luhan — 8.1°). But the month of May is quite as warm as July in England. On the other hand, we find' May frosts in the entire Ukraine as far as the shores of the Black Sea, altho they do not appear so destructive here as in Russia proper.
The Ukrainian summer is everywhere marked by considerable heat. Only in the northwest corner of the Ukraine (Rostoche, Pidlassye, Polissye, Volhynia) is the summer moderately warm (Lemberg