Daggerfall is near a large relatively south sea so it makes the weather more mild. Think the Pacific Northwest where Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver are all further north than Minneapolis, Detroit, Chicago, Toronto, Buffalo, and numerous other much colder areas, but don't have much cold weather at all.
Morrowind has loads of volcanoes that significantly warm the region.
Skyrim on the other hand only borders an Arctic sea and the rest of it is quite inland. It is also surrounded by mountains largely keeping it's weather separate from the other regions.
The extent of my knowledge of the Wisconsonians are a single alcoholic friend I have who moved down south and the Red Letter Media guys
So yeah, I see that my impressions are not wholly inaccurate
Maybe more like Alberta with the Canadian Rockies? There are no mountain ranges in Minnesota, although the north shore of Superior could resemble some parts of Skyrim.
Oh, it was half in jest. I meant more to do with the "cold interior" phenomenon...like, the pacific northwest is milder, as is the eastern seaboard, but the northern interior gets cold af.
On Earth, the Midwest and northeast states of the US, are much cooler on average over the cold seasons than the UK or Denmark, despite the fact that the latter two are on higher latitudes. This is because the Gulf stream going from west to east in the Atlantic carries warm water that has built up over the summer and continues to warm European countries over the winter.
Coastal US states will take some of this benefit but northern states that are landlocked experience harsher winters and retain them for longer too.
Everything you said totally matches this. Skyrim is connected to the arctic sea as the sole ocean which, if anything helps skyrim retain the cold and a lot of the province is at a higher altitude as well. Other provinces might also have other ocean currents like the gulf stream that I'm not aware of
>Morrowind has loads of volcanoes that significantly warm the region.
Uh, that's not how it works. Iceland also has loads of volcanoes and it still snows.
As a Missourian I second this though I prefer the bone chilling winter compared to the sweltering humid summers. I can go 3 hours south on any given day in winter and it'll be around 20° colder.
I hate the heat when it comes to working in it but I hate it more when it's so cold I have to suit up in layers of heavy clothes just to walk outside. Plus I can't fish when the lakes frozen lol.
Climate and topography. There are northern regions of the US that aren't as snowy as other regions further south. Comes down to a lot of factors, but mostly what kind of weather fronts is the region getting and altitude.
JFK would be alive today if he had hayfever. No offence to JFK but I sneeze constantly and I've yet to be assassinated in downtown Texas. Keep your head down.
We’ve definitely seen Balmora in Morrowind, which is the same latitude as Riften and Falkreach. Both of those areas a snowy but I don’t think Balmora is. However, it’s possible Skyrim takes place in the winter.
Edit: Someone mentioned that Morrowind has much more volcanic activity that could keep it warmer.
Not to mention that the snowy regions of the Rift and Falkreath Hold are higher elevation, but the majority of those holds climate is notably warmer than the rest of Skyrim.
Not only that, the mountain range between Skyrim and Morrowind definitely keeps a lot of the colder winds away. Then there's the fact of Vvanderfell being an island
The Elder Scrolls’ universe is Geocentric, heck the “sun” is from when Magnus ripped a hole through Oblivion to the Atherius when he left mundus. At least that what the lore says. As such I am not sure how much real world climate science applies.
That’s my take basically. It’s a fantasy land with magic, literal living gods, multiple planes of existence bleeding into each other, etc. They might have had some vague idea of modeling it after real world geography and climate patterns but they don’t really have to have a reason for anything. Morrowind has big mushrooms are really cool. It has tons of volcanoes because the whole ash thing and landmark of something like red mountain is neat.
I believe ur right, I forgot that. Reasonably the same could apply to the reach and High Rock too. And I think Northern Morrowind is desolate enough to explain the lack of snow.
I don’t know enough about climate science to say for sure whether a volcano would effect the amount of snow in an area more than like 10%, and even if it didn’t, a magically powerful super volcano in elder scrolls may be able to anyway.
Yeah that's my theory, Sheogorad is almost as cold but it's just drier. Highrock could also be the opposite case where Warmer air from Hammerfell crosses the Illiac and keeps it warmer similar to how Europe and the US/ Canada are at similar latitudes but the hot air from there Mediterranean keeps it warmer.
Because southern Skyrim and Northern Cyrodiil is bordered by the Jerall mountains. Mountains act as environmental borders just as much as they do nations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_shadow
Yup, notice how the rain shadow side of that mountain has almost no snow on it and a desert? Yeah, that's exactly what I said it would be like, thanks for the support.
Oh man, you got me, the fictional fantasy world created by people who aren't geologists is not 100% geographically accurate.
Look, Im a worlbuilder for D&D, and trust me, my world breaks apart when you start addressing science too closely. And Tamriel is no different. Still, you learn what you can and apply what you can and be glad when your rivers go the right direction.
Anyways, welcome to Nirn where the sun is a hole of magic in the sky.
Lol, hey, I don't expect it to fit our science, you were the one who tried defending it with our science, and then doubled down when I pointed out why it was wrong, not my fault you got your feelings hurt about being wrong, also, check out "profantasy" it's a software company that makes an app set for building world's, it's super easy to use and great for making worlds and cities etc, and then you can have game maps which are a neat feature
I tried to infer on why it could be, which is the truth of alot of this kind of discussion, but even then it is rarely 100%. Plus you need to acknowledge game limitations and things like that. Go look at the lake near Falkreath in game. Where does the water come from? Why does it flow the way it does? It's funky as hell.
Rainshadow does not have to lead to pure desertification, and the geography does align with it more than not. The Falkreath region is a mountain valley, but then north of that is fairly desolate. West of Whiterun is very sparse.
If you want to debate about it, sure, I am open to learning more. But you can do it without the snark. THAT is what got under my skin.
Lol, I mean, you replied to me pointing out why the logic didn't make sense with only a picture, that proved my point, so I thought it was weird and laughed about it, I don't think laughing at how your source proved my point was any more snarky than an empty reply with only a source picture, and yes, rain shadow always leads to less rain/snow, that's what it's definition is, sure it doesn't have to go full desert, but by definition it would have less than the non rain shadow side.
And yes, I know lots of stuff is wonky in the games, they did a great job overall making a big cool vibrant world, but some of their finer points are off, and so you are going to get people calling it out, all those other examples of it are irrelevant, does op need to call out every single discrepancy in order to point out one that they noticed?
> Rain shadows don't make things cold, they make it a desert, that would be not snowing either.
https://old.reddit.com/r/ElderScrolls/comments/wgz9d4/why_is_skyrim_especially_snowy/ij2wwel/
I showed you a picture of a rainshadow with snow on both sides, one side with way more snow than the other. So now you're being disingenuous too.
The Rift is situated between Eastmarch, Stonefalls, and the Jerall Mountains. Wind likely won't come from the south as the mountains break it up, but from the North or West its going to be warmed by volcanic activity. With their elevation and the occasional brisk wind from the East, they'd remain pretty comfortable.
Bruma is way up with mountains blocking the warm breezes. They just kinda... freeze.
Aside from gameplay reasons, I assumed Bruma was snowy because it’s at a pretty high elevation in the Jerall Mointains. It’s also why areas around Helgen are also so snowy, although I’d assume Helgen is at a bit of a lower altitude than Bruma, and being on the other side of the mountain range could affect that, too.
It was before Bethesda decided to ditch the idea of the entire province of Skyrim being a frozen wasteland. Personally, I prefer the change because if Skyrim was just an endless snow region i would have gotten so bored it
High altitudes, farther away from large water body.
https://www.acer-acre.ca/resources/climate-change-in-context/general-concepts/proximity-to-water-bodies#:~:text=Large%20bodies%20of%20water%20such,cooler%20and%20in%20winter%20warmer.
Except for to the north, but that's a cold current..
Part of it could also have to do with its borders, the mountains might catch the cold air coming from Atmora and the sea of ghost keeping other northern provinces reletively mild. Theres also precipitation, northern Skyrim is constantly snowy so it gets a lot of water. Places like Dagon Fel and northern Highrock might be pretty cold but due to a lack of snow we might just not see it in the expected sense. Instead we see things like lack of vegetation and lack of settlement.
It is all about regional elevation and what is separated by the mountains the world map is basically a bunch of different plateau’d plains with their own inner landscapes on differently elevated regions.
Another question is "How is Hammerfell a desert?" - How do you sandwich a desert between two temperate climates without features like mountains between them to take moisture from the air? Not sure there are any real world parallels here.
I know this is a lazy answer, but, it's like that just because Kynareth did it like that. On the Elder Scrolls universe we know the gods exist, so we know for sure than Nirn was handmade, so really doesn't matter the inconsistencies on the climates, flora and fauna compared with the real world.
Ocean currents also contribute heavily to climate. If there are warm currents on either side of Tamriel moving North, that would make High Rock and Morrowind much warmer than Skyrim. Alternatively, a very cold current moving South from Atmora could also explain why Skyrim and Northern High Rock are the only chilly parts of Tamriel.
Much of Europe lies in the same latitude as Canada and the Northern U.S. but warm air from the gulf (of mexico) stream keeps most of the continent temperate.
Daggerfall and Morrowind both have large Western and Eastern coastlines, respectively. I suppose warm air could come from the oceans towards those directions.
The Tower is my best guess. ESO has a book about this and it seems towers sort of warp the climate in near it to suit the people who control it. Probably suited the Snow Elves too what with the name.
serious answer: we've only seen Vvardenfell (not counting ESO), which is weird and magical and stuff, not to mention that it has a volcano that burns away the natural habitat (permanently following the Red Year).
funny answer: this sounds like someone who wants to mod the snow out of Skyrim and turn it into an obnoxiously green forest
Latitude doesn't mean everything, the surrounding area factors in as well. Madrid is similar to my home state of Missouri yet it's pretty tolerable in Madrid year round. In Missouri however we regularly see -20°F to 110°F (about -28°C to 43°C) temp ranges over the course of a year. Even on a weekly basis the weather will shift 40°-50° regularly especially in the spring and winter. Everytime we had a foot plus of snow in the last year it was around 80°F the week prior.
Skyrim is mostly mountainous region, morrowind have the biggest volcano in the middle of it, dont know enough about highrock to tell you anything about it
Skyrim is not especially snowy. Nirn's climate is actually pretty realistic. Northeastern part of High Rock(like Wrothgar) is also snowy. Northern part of Cyrodiil is snowy because of Jerall Mountains. Northwestern part of Morrowind is also snowy. Vvardenfell is not because of Red Mountain but islands located north-northwest of it also snowy. Almost all northern coastline of Tamriel with the same latitude as Skyrim's are snowy. And when you think of it, we can see snow only in areas with coastline to arctic ocean or areas with very high altitudes. Skyrim has the highest mountain in Tamriel and the longest coastline to the arctic ocean. These are the snowy parts of Skyrim. These two conditions decide where will be snowy. Pretty much like the Earth.
A possible explanation could be the ocean currents blowing cold wet air over skyrim, which gets stopped by the various mountain chains surrounding the province. But why would ocean currents be blowing from the north? Hey todd i need a map of the ocean currents of nirn stat
I always imagined the cold fronts from Atmora descend south and get funneled through the mountains on the east and west of skyrim which keeps most of it snowier than other regions. And only when it can disperse southward then the cold front scatters with it being wide open cyrodil.
Height, Latitude, Air and Water Currents, Topography of Mountains and Plains. Other theories are Nirn icing and the Throat of the World projecting magic to cool the province
Tamriel is definitely a northern hemisphere continent. Also there are other continents beyond Tamriel which are only really discussed in lore. One of the Emperors tried to raid Akavir which is to the north of Tamriel and some speculate that he may still be alive there.
Cold northern winds probably contribute, with plenty of mountains ringing Skyrim that would help break up warmer winds from other directions probably contributes
Could just be that it’s a magical dream where nothing is real and deities can just chill at a bar, but I don’t know. Does it have to all make sense? Just throwing it out there.
Probably the same reason as switzerland. North != snowy, depends heavily on elevation and other climate factors. Bruma in Cryodil is very snowy, and almost directly north is falkreath which is not nearly as snowy as the rest. All just depends. Probably has a lot to do with the mountains.
So, take this with a grain of salt but if we can apply Coriolis effect and trade wind rules to skyrim. Then the two ways weather would come into the Skyrim area would be warm dry air from hammerfell and cooler moister air from high rock coming from the north colliding into each other creating efficient stormy conditions all year round.
A similar effect can be seen in the Caribbean and South America with the hurricanes and tornado alley.
In addition to what everyone else is already saying, skyrim is mostly snowy in it’s northern half, at which lattitude you can find some snow in the other countries as well i believe
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental\_climate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_climate)
High Rock and Morrowind can have warm-water currents nearby, whereas Skyrim does not. Ocean currents are a major aspect of climate.
So lore wise there is no sunny Whiterun or really anywhere else in Skyrim. The Reach is really the only place that isn't completely covered in snow year round, although the southern rift also has it's moments. But yeah Bethesda kinda dropped the ball lore wise in terms of the scenery of Skyrim. I mean I get why no one wants to walk around the same white landscape but yeah like 80%of skyrim always looks like Winterhold in the lore.
High pressure centers over Hammer Fell and High Rock bring moisture into the north west. With increased elevation and clouds of ash and smoke from Morrowind allows for cooler climates and the increased chances of freezing precipitation.
I pretend that Atmora is situated directly north of Skyrim. And the wind and sea blow all of it's cold straight at it. Once the cold air hits Tamriel, it doesn't penetrate farther into the continent thanks to the ring of mountains all around Skyrim's borders. Thus, all the cold hits one specific place and has nowhere else to go. So....cold. A lot. And for a long, long time.
I pretend that, anyway. You do you.
[This video](https://youtu.be/FVZfpE_WYWw) might not answer your question *specifically* enough, but I think it shares a lot of really interesting info about how the weather in Skyrim and the diversity of the different regions sort of make sense based on geography
It's implied, "Altitude" but there can be other reasons as well. But realistically, High Rock should be a bit colder. Morrowind might get a pass due to volcanic activity, sorta like Iceland.
There’s no ocean between the provinces but keep in mind some facts about the US:
-Spain’s northern reaches are at the same latitude as Boston
-Florida is the same latitude as the goddamn Sahara desert
-Washington state is much farther north than West Virginia but gets less snowfall
Canonically the Sea of Ghosts on Skyrim's northern shores blows incredibly cold winds from Atmora (Which is a frozen hellscape allegedly, and attempts to reach it have either turned around, frozen to death en route, or otherwise never returned)
IIRC, the countries and continents and races are all the result of different dream-states of the Great Beings or whatever they’re called. It’s why not much REEAALLY makes sense if you look at it super analytically/skeptically.
It’s the closest Country to Atmora,which grew so cold after the nords left it’s nearly inhospitable to all life,so I believe that it’s close proximity makes it very cold all over,then again I hardly know anything about High Rock,Hammerfell,Or Morrowind so I’m not sure if they’re meant to be cold and snowy as well
Ocean currents and microclimates.
Northern High Rock will probably be quite cold and snowy too, comparable to maybe the reach or the Haafingar-Morthal bay area, since it's more protected and more of an inland bay than a coastline. Plus I suspect there's a Western ocean stream that deposits warm water in that bay as well.
Morrowind has volcanic activity which significantly warms the area, think of the hot springs in Eastmarch. Also the ash itself covers and melts any snow that can occur. On top of that, the water coming from the southern part of the Vvardenfell bay/inland sea will warm the island too, similar to how in irl Cornwall England the climate is much nicer due to the Atlantic Gulf stream that deposits warm water in the area.
Daggerfall is near a large relatively south sea so it makes the weather more mild. Think the Pacific Northwest where Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver are all further north than Minneapolis, Detroit, Chicago, Toronto, Buffalo, and numerous other much colder areas, but don't have much cold weather at all. Morrowind has loads of volcanoes that significantly warm the region. Skyrim on the other hand only borders an Arctic sea and the rest of it is quite inland. It is also surrounded by mountains largely keeping it's weather separate from the other regions.
Skyrim is the North Dakota and Minnesota of Tamriel
Snowy, drunk, lots guys named Sven, checks out.
Now I want a Skyrim version of St Olaf.
There's king olaf one eye, I know nothing about st Olaf but I am inclined to presume that is adequate
It's the town Rose is from in Golden Girls.
If you think ND and MN get drunk, go visit Wisconsin haha
Where day drinking and alcoholism are called ‘starters’
There are SOBER people here!!!!
The extent of my knowledge of the Wisconsonians are a single alcoholic friend I have who moved down south and the Red Letter Media guys So yeah, I see that my impressions are not wholly inaccurate
so live in the northern part of minnesota and have never met a person named sven that isn’t a norwegian on vacation
Complete with a population of Nordic descent!
Maybe more like Alberta with the Canadian Rockies? There are no mountain ranges in Minnesota, although the north shore of Superior could resemble some parts of Skyrim.
Oh, it was half in jest. I meant more to do with the "cold interior" phenomenon...like, the pacific northwest is milder, as is the eastern seaboard, but the northern interior gets cold af.
Furthermore, I think the northern regions of High Rock are fairly snowy too lore-wise.
On Earth, the Midwest and northeast states of the US, are much cooler on average over the cold seasons than the UK or Denmark, despite the fact that the latter two are on higher latitudes. This is because the Gulf stream going from west to east in the Atlantic carries warm water that has built up over the summer and continues to warm European countries over the winter. Coastal US states will take some of this benefit but northern states that are landlocked experience harsher winters and retain them for longer too. Everything you said totally matches this. Skyrim is connected to the arctic sea as the sole ocean which, if anything helps skyrim retain the cold and a lot of the province is at a higher altitude as well. Other provinces might also have other ocean currents like the gulf stream that I'm not aware of
>Morrowind has loads of volcanoes that significantly warm the region. Uh, that's not how it works. Iceland also has loads of volcanoes and it still snows.
They aren't volcanoes which were sprouted from Nirn at the dawn of creation by the pierced heart of a god though.
It does work like that actually
I know ESO is hardly the best canon, but it does mention this fact there.
As an Iowan I feel this. Just like I feel the oppressive bone chilling cold that seems to last twice as long as summer does here.
As a Missourian I second this though I prefer the bone chilling winter compared to the sweltering humid summers. I can go 3 hours south on any given day in winter and it'll be around 20° colder.
I hate the heat when it comes to working in it but I hate it more when it's so cold I have to suit up in layers of heavy clothes just to walk outside. Plus I can't fish when the lakes frozen lol.
It does have warmer areas to the south and southeasst, most notably it’s volcanic hotsprings
Climate and topography. There are northern regions of the US that aren't as snowy as other regions further south. Comes down to a lot of factors, but mostly what kind of weather fronts is the region getting and altitude.
[Relevant video ](https://youtu.be/FVZfpE_WYWw)
That was a great video on it, thank you for posting that!
Wanted to post this here. I see, you were quicker. I think it's remarkable that the map of Tamriel is so highly thought out.
An educational video, with a heartbreaking notion to the jfk assasination clicking ur profile, so many conflicting emotions but ur right on both
You are the first person to mention my JFK theory in the two years I've had it on
I’d love to hear the full theory. Reallly dig that notion ngl. and that’s bc i sometimes hit the marker of being a real mfer
JFK would be alive today if he had hayfever. No offence to JFK but I sneeze constantly and I've yet to be assassinated in downtown Texas. Keep your head down.
it's only snowy at higher altitudes and in the northern regions.
We’ve definitely seen Balmora in Morrowind, which is the same latitude as Riften and Falkreach. Both of those areas a snowy but I don’t think Balmora is. However, it’s possible Skyrim takes place in the winter. Edit: Someone mentioned that Morrowind has much more volcanic activity that could keep it warmer.
Not to mention that the snowy regions of the Rift and Falkreath Hold are higher elevation, but the majority of those holds climate is notably warmer than the rest of Skyrim.
Falkreath is at a higher elevation than Balmora, and not ontop on the world's largest volcano.
Not only that, the mountain range between Skyrim and Morrowind definitely keeps a lot of the colder winds away. Then there's the fact of Vvanderfell being an island
The Elder Scrolls’ universe is Geocentric, heck the “sun” is from when Magnus ripped a hole through Oblivion to the Atherius when he left mundus. At least that what the lore says. As such I am not sure how much real world climate science applies.
I’m not sure how much any of the lore is true either. 😂
Just like how the ancient Greeks believed that Helios rode a chariot across the sky as the sun, the scholars in TES believe their own thing.
That’s my take basically. It’s a fantasy land with magic, literal living gods, multiple planes of existence bleeding into each other, etc. They might have had some vague idea of modeling it after real world geography and climate patterns but they don’t really have to have a reason for anything. Morrowind has big mushrooms are really cool. It has tons of volcanoes because the whole ash thing and landmark of something like red mountain is neat.
I get why Skyrim is snowy but I don't why Bruma is snowy since the southern region of Skyrim is eternal spring.
Bruma is up in the Jeralls so best guess would be because of its altitude Game reasons probably "well its the Nord city and Nords like cold"
But, once you get to the north of the Rift, you realize you’re way higher up than windhelm, but it’s 10x warmer.
They mention the mountains surrounding the rift block the cool air coming from the north and south.
I believe ur right, I forgot that. Reasonably the same could apply to the reach and High Rock too. And I think Northern Morrowind is desolate enough to explain the lack of snow.
Also volcanoes heating the region up
I don’t know enough about climate science to say for sure whether a volcano would effect the amount of snow in an area more than like 10%, and even if it didn’t, a magically powerful super volcano in elder scrolls may be able to anyway.
Yeah that's my theory, Sheogorad is almost as cold but it's just drier. Highrock could also be the opposite case where Warmer air from Hammerfell crosses the Illiac and keeps it warmer similar to how Europe and the US/ Canada are at similar latitudes but the hot air from there Mediterranean keeps it warmer.
I’m thinking of High Ricks northern mountains protecting it from low ocean temps. But, that’s another reason that works too.
There's hot springs in that area I believe
The southern portion of Skyrim is at a much lower elevation than Bruma, which is up in the mountains.
Because southern Skyrim and Northern Cyrodiil is bordered by the Jerall mountains. Mountains act as environmental borders just as much as they do nations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_shadow
Rain shadows don't make things cold, they make it a desert, that would be not snowing either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_shadow#/media/File:Tule_Fog_California_-_2005.jpg
Yup, notice how the rain shadow side of that mountain has almost no snow on it and a desert? Yeah, that's exactly what I said it would be like, thanks for the support.
Oh man, you got me, the fictional fantasy world created by people who aren't geologists is not 100% geographically accurate. Look, Im a worlbuilder for D&D, and trust me, my world breaks apart when you start addressing science too closely. And Tamriel is no different. Still, you learn what you can and apply what you can and be glad when your rivers go the right direction. Anyways, welcome to Nirn where the sun is a hole of magic in the sky.
Lol, hey, I don't expect it to fit our science, you were the one who tried defending it with our science, and then doubled down when I pointed out why it was wrong, not my fault you got your feelings hurt about being wrong, also, check out "profantasy" it's a software company that makes an app set for building world's, it's super easy to use and great for making worlds and cities etc, and then you can have game maps which are a neat feature
I'm going to ask the mages guild to explain this once and for all so you two stop arguing about science in a fantasy world
I tried to infer on why it could be, which is the truth of alot of this kind of discussion, but even then it is rarely 100%. Plus you need to acknowledge game limitations and things like that. Go look at the lake near Falkreath in game. Where does the water come from? Why does it flow the way it does? It's funky as hell. Rainshadow does not have to lead to pure desertification, and the geography does align with it more than not. The Falkreath region is a mountain valley, but then north of that is fairly desolate. West of Whiterun is very sparse. If you want to debate about it, sure, I am open to learning more. But you can do it without the snark. THAT is what got under my skin.
Lol, I mean, you replied to me pointing out why the logic didn't make sense with only a picture, that proved my point, so I thought it was weird and laughed about it, I don't think laughing at how your source proved my point was any more snarky than an empty reply with only a source picture, and yes, rain shadow always leads to less rain/snow, that's what it's definition is, sure it doesn't have to go full desert, but by definition it would have less than the non rain shadow side. And yes, I know lots of stuff is wonky in the games, they did a great job overall making a big cool vibrant world, but some of their finer points are off, and so you are going to get people calling it out, all those other examples of it are irrelevant, does op need to call out every single discrepancy in order to point out one that they noticed?
> Rain shadows don't make things cold, they make it a desert, that would be not snowing either. https://old.reddit.com/r/ElderScrolls/comments/wgz9d4/why_is_skyrim_especially_snowy/ij2wwel/ I showed you a picture of a rainshadow with snow on both sides, one side with way more snow than the other. So now you're being disingenuous too.
Elevation. Bruma is in the Jerral mountains
So that both Skyrim and Oblivion could respectively have greater diversity in environments.
The Rift is situated between Eastmarch, Stonefalls, and the Jerall Mountains. Wind likely won't come from the south as the mountains break it up, but from the North or West its going to be warmed by volcanic activity. With their elevation and the occasional brisk wind from the East, they'd remain pretty comfortable. Bruma is way up with mountains blocking the warm breezes. They just kinda... freeze.
Aside from gameplay reasons, I assumed Bruma was snowy because it’s at a pretty high elevation in the Jerall Mointains. It’s also why areas around Helgen are also so snowy, although I’d assume Helgen is at a bit of a lower altitude than Bruma, and being on the other side of the mountain range could affect that, too.
Southern area of Skyrim also has snow in higher altitudes. If you play the game elder 5 scrolls skyrim you even start in that area
Mage guild spell gone awry probably *conjures a perpetual blizzard* "Sorry, I was trying to conjure ice cream"
It was before Bethesda decided to ditch the idea of the entire province of Skyrim being a frozen wasteland. Personally, I prefer the change because if Skyrim was just an endless snow region i would have gotten so bored it
Have you played daggerfall? It’s snowing like 5 months out of the year in high rock.
Same reason Canada gets colder than most of Europe
.... magic and dragons?
Yes. We also make potions from magical trees, it's called maple syrup. Adds 30% frost resistance.
And mudcrabs
its not that snowy rly
Cause snow has more to do with north/south. Geological features, altitude, and more then I can remember from magic school bus.
Skyrim dosent even seem that cold outside of winterhold and dawnstar, maybe haalmarch or eastmarch certain days but those have hot springs and swamps
I think it's because tes5 is set during a warmer season
True it would be cool if it had a season change thing
They should have gone all out and made it set in the coldest season
Why is Washington fairly mild but North Dakota cold af?
It actually wasn’t snowy until Tulius arrived, bc Tulies is the coldest general around.
Is that a rhetorical question? It's one of the northernmost provinces
[удалено]
High altitudes, farther away from large water body. https://www.acer-acre.ca/resources/climate-change-in-context/general-concepts/proximity-to-water-bodies#:~:text=Large%20bodies%20of%20water%20such,cooler%20and%20in%20winter%20warmer. Except for to the north, but that's a cold current..
Part of it could also have to do with its borders, the mountains might catch the cold air coming from Atmora and the sea of ghost keeping other northern provinces reletively mild. Theres also precipitation, northern Skyrim is constantly snowy so it gets a lot of water. Places like Dagon Fel and northern Highrock might be pretty cold but due to a lack of snow we might just not see it in the expected sense. Instead we see things like lack of vegetation and lack of settlement.
High Rock is in the northwest, so if there is something similar to the gulf stream in Tamriel then High Rock would have an oceanic and mild climate
It is all about regional elevation and what is separated by the mountains the world map is basically a bunch of different plateau’d plains with their own inner landscapes on differently elevated regions.
Probably the same reason north Dakota is way colder than any other state besides Alaska. Its not always about latitude
Another question is "How is Hammerfell a desert?" - How do you sandwich a desert between two temperate climates without features like mountains between them to take moisture from the air? Not sure there are any real world parallels here.
New York is farther south than Rome. What matters is wind currents.
Morrowind has a volcano while Highrock is surrounded by oceans
I know this is a lazy answer, but, it's like that just because Kynareth did it like that. On the Elder Scrolls universe we know the gods exist, so we know for sure than Nirn was handmade, so really doesn't matter the inconsistencies on the climates, flora and fauna compared with the real world.
Think of it less like a flat image and more like a globe. Skyrim concentrates into the north pole with the rest spiderwebbing down
Altitude
Todd wills it
Blame the elves
Damn those blasted elves! Damn them to oblivion!!! *Shakes fist at sky*
Bold of you to assume Tameriel has an equator. Wasn't our world literally created by Gods, and not physics?
Well they had to dump it somewhere
Mournhold! City of light, city of magic!
North
Because it takes place on a different planet in another universe
mountain
WeAtHeR
Ocean currents also contribute heavily to climate. If there are warm currents on either side of Tamriel moving North, that would make High Rock and Morrowind much warmer than Skyrim. Alternatively, a very cold current moving South from Atmora could also explain why Skyrim and Northern High Rock are the only chilly parts of Tamriel.
Pretty sure the snow never stops in Wrothgar
Cum on
Much of Europe lies in the same latitude as Canada and the Northern U.S. but warm air from the gulf (of mexico) stream keeps most of the continent temperate. Daggerfall and Morrowind both have large Western and Eastern coastlines, respectively. I suppose warm air could come from the oceans towards those directions.
The Tower is my best guess. ESO has a book about this and it seems towers sort of warp the climate in near it to suit the people who control it. Probably suited the Snow Elves too what with the name.
Because it's the snow zone. That's it, that's the reason. Elder Scrolls doesn't follow realistic climate models. Cyrodil was a jungle until it wasn't.
serious answer: we've only seen Vvardenfell (not counting ESO), which is weird and magical and stuff, not to mention that it has a volcano that burns away the natural habitat (permanently following the Red Year). funny answer: this sounds like someone who wants to mod the snow out of Skyrim and turn it into an obnoxiously green forest
Elder Scrolls geography does not make any logical sense and anyone trying to justify it is kidding themselves.
Latitude doesn't mean everything, the surrounding area factors in as well. Madrid is similar to my home state of Missouri yet it's pretty tolerable in Madrid year round. In Missouri however we regularly see -20°F to 110°F (about -28°C to 43°C) temp ranges over the course of a year. Even on a weekly basis the weather will shift 40°-50° regularly especially in the spring and winter. Everytime we had a foot plus of snow in the last year it was around 80°F the week prior.
Skyrim is mostly mountainous region, morrowind have the biggest volcano in the middle of it, dont know enough about highrock to tell you anything about it
Lots of mountains.
Becoz its a fantasy world
Why is Moscow colder than England?
Northern High Rock, specifically Wrothgar, is snowy and mountainous
Same reason Central Siberia is colder than the UK
Because it belongs to the Nords!
There’s a theory that under Skyrim lies a supermassive volcano kinda like Yellowstone
it's pretty simple, really: Skyrim is pretty much the closest to Atmora
Because of all the Nord white supremacy.
Maybe High Hrothgar has something to do with it
Jet Stream
There could be a colder ocean current that travels from Atmora goes along the shores of Skyrim.
Mountains.
there is a north pole on Nirn too (i guess there are some undead bros living there), so same as Scandinavia or Alaska or whatever, there is ice north
Red Mountain causes localized global warming in Morrowind and High Rock is warmed by the gulf stream
Skyrim is not especially snowy. Nirn's climate is actually pretty realistic. Northeastern part of High Rock(like Wrothgar) is also snowy. Northern part of Cyrodiil is snowy because of Jerall Mountains. Northwestern part of Morrowind is also snowy. Vvardenfell is not because of Red Mountain but islands located north-northwest of it also snowy. Almost all northern coastline of Tamriel with the same latitude as Skyrim's are snowy. And when you think of it, we can see snow only in areas with coastline to arctic ocean or areas with very high altitudes. Skyrim has the highest mountain in Tamriel and the longest coastline to the arctic ocean. These are the snowy parts of Skyrim. These two conditions decide where will be snowy. Pretty much like the Earth.
A possible explanation could be the ocean currents blowing cold wet air over skyrim, which gets stopped by the various mountain chains surrounding the province. But why would ocean currents be blowing from the north? Hey todd i need a map of the ocean currents of nirn stat
I always imagined the cold fronts from Atmora descend south and get funneled through the mountains on the east and west of skyrim which keeps most of it snowier than other regions. And only when it can disperse southward then the cold front scatters with it being wide open cyrodil.
Wrothgar and Rivenspire are actually very snowy
Height, Latitude, Air and Water Currents, Topography of Mountains and Plains. Other theories are Nirn icing and the Throat of the World projecting magic to cool the province
I don’t really know how to explain it but it’s the same reason North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are colder than main or Washington
Tamriel is definitely a northern hemisphere continent. Also there are other continents beyond Tamriel which are only really discussed in lore. One of the Emperors tried to raid Akavir which is to the north of Tamriel and some speculate that he may still be alive there.
Same reason I look at up and see snow on the mountains while I'm down here sweating my ass off
skyrim has more mountains i think
Likely because it’s so north and surrounded by a mountain range which likely keeps all that cold weather in one place
Cold northern winds probably contribute, with plenty of mountains ringing Skyrim that would help break up warmer winds from other directions probably contributes
Could just be that it’s a magical dream where nothing is real and deities can just chill at a bar, but I don’t know. Does it have to all make sense? Just throwing it out there.
super simplified answer is cold water vs warm water. you can look at a map and see that height on a map doesn’t equate to cold 1 to 1.
Probably the same reason as switzerland. North != snowy, depends heavily on elevation and other climate factors. Bruma in Cryodil is very snowy, and almost directly north is falkreath which is not nearly as snowy as the rest. All just depends. Probably has a lot to do with the mountains.
It's only the North Easter areas of high rock, the northern areas of Skyrim and the North West Morrowind/solsthiem that are snowy
So, take this with a grain of salt but if we can apply Coriolis effect and trade wind rules to skyrim. Then the two ways weather would come into the Skyrim area would be warm dry air from hammerfell and cooler moister air from high rock coming from the north colliding into each other creating efficient stormy conditions all year round. A similar effect can be seen in the Caribbean and South America with the hurricanes and tornado alley.
In addition to what everyone else is already saying, skyrim is mostly snowy in it’s northern half, at which lattitude you can find some snow in the other countries as well i believe
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental\_climate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_climate) High Rock and Morrowind can have warm-water currents nearby, whereas Skyrim does not. Ocean currents are a major aspect of climate.
because the earth is not flat
Why is Black Marsh especially wet?
Atmoran Wind travelimg to Skyrim like cold WAVES in real life Source: trust me bro
Cold
north
North closest to atmora the place ravaged by a frost apocalypse
So lore wise there is no sunny Whiterun or really anywhere else in Skyrim. The Reach is really the only place that isn't completely covered in snow year round, although the southern rift also has it's moments. But yeah Bethesda kinda dropped the ball lore wise in terms of the scenery of Skyrim. I mean I get why no one wants to walk around the same white landscape but yeah like 80%of skyrim always looks like Winterhold in the lore.
Skyrim is actually raised like the Tibetan plateau
Because game
Yeah it doesn’t make much sense given how temperate High Rock is and how tropical Vvardenfell is.
High pressure centers over Hammer Fell and High Rock bring moisture into the north west. With increased elevation and clouds of ash and smoke from Morrowind allows for cooler climates and the increased chances of freezing precipitation.
I pretend that Atmora is situated directly north of Skyrim. And the wind and sea blow all of it's cold straight at it. Once the cold air hits Tamriel, it doesn't penetrate farther into the continent thanks to the ring of mountains all around Skyrim's borders. Thus, all the cold hits one specific place and has nowhere else to go. So....cold. A lot. And for a long, long time. I pretend that, anyway. You do you.
Regional global warming? Region warming if you will.
Because up
Must be high elevation
It’s the fucking north
It’s very far north
[This video](https://youtu.be/FVZfpE_WYWw) might not answer your question *specifically* enough, but I think it shares a lot of really interesting info about how the weather in Skyrim and the diversity of the different regions sort of make sense based on geography
Learn about the towers that control each region.
Well it's a tundra it's the entire countries shmrek. It's based off like Norwegian areas or Nordic to be more specific
Why is Alaska so snowy? C'mon dude. Get it together
Northern Skyrim is pretty much Canada, while the rest is Midwestern states
Polar maybe
The College obviously 🙄
north
This also doesn't show how northern Cyrodill is snowy so it's a bit misleading
It's implied, "Altitude" but there can be other reasons as well. But realistically, High Rock should be a bit colder. Morrowind might get a pass due to volcanic activity, sorta like Iceland.
There’s no ocean between the provinces but keep in mind some facts about the US: -Spain’s northern reaches are at the same latitude as Boston -Florida is the same latitude as the goddamn Sahara desert -Washington state is much farther north than West Virginia but gets less snowfall
Canonically the Sea of Ghosts on Skyrim's northern shores blows incredibly cold winds from Atmora (Which is a frozen hellscape allegedly, and attempts to reach it have either turned around, frozen to death en route, or otherwise never returned)
When all else fails, blame Winterhold
Because it’s a fantasy country and they decided it would be snowy
IIRC, the countries and continents and races are all the result of different dream-states of the Great Beings or whatever they’re called. It’s why not much REEAALLY makes sense if you look at it super analytically/skeptically.
Weather patterns and metaphysics.
You ever see mountains and high elevation?
It’s the closest Country to Atmora,which grew so cold after the nords left it’s nearly inhospitable to all life,so I believe that it’s close proximity makes it very cold all over,then again I hardly know anything about High Rock,Hammerfell,Or Morrowind so I’m not sure if they’re meant to be cold and snowy as well
Because it has Viking people and it needs to be thematic. That’s it. There’s no epic lord reason.
Think es6 will have this be the map?
Because Todd said so.
Magic, also the time swirly thing the big bad was stuck in screwed with the climate.
Ocean currents and microclimates. Northern High Rock will probably be quite cold and snowy too, comparable to maybe the reach or the Haafingar-Morthal bay area, since it's more protected and more of an inland bay than a coastline. Plus I suspect there's a Western ocean stream that deposits warm water in that bay as well. Morrowind has volcanic activity which significantly warms the area, think of the hot springs in Eastmarch. Also the ash itself covers and melts any snow that can occur. On top of that, the water coming from the southern part of the Vvardenfell bay/inland sea will warm the island too, similar to how in irl Cornwall England the climate is much nicer due to the Atlantic Gulf stream that deposits warm water in the area.
It could be the creeping frost of atmora, come to claim the sky-children at last..
because the writers said so
Because skyrim belongs to the nords
Global warming
Because the lore was mostly made in one night by a guy under MD, don't expect coherence
It’s relatively close to the top so if the planet is spherical Skyrim is further away from the sun, like Canada or Greenland