Weather and time

The Czech Republic has moderate continental climate.There are some differences between summer and winter but they are not so big.A year is divided into five seasons:spring, summer, autumn(fall-american autumn) and winter.Each season lasts about three months and is attractive in some way.Many people consider spring and summer the most beautiful seasons of the year and this is why they fall in love in spring and take their holiday in summer.
Spring begins on the 21st March.Nature begins to awake from its long winter sleep and new life begins. Nights get shorter and days get longer.There is more sunshine and it is warmer and warmer.The thaw sets in, snow melts, rivers swell and there may be floods in the regions through which the river pass.Soon the first flowers appear:white snowdrops and snowflakes(bledule), yellow marsh marigolds(blatouch), dandelions (pampeliška) and daffodils(narcis), blue forget-me-nots(pomněnka), coloured crocuses(šafrán) and tulips, purple violets(fialka), catkins(kočičky) and chestnuts(kaštan) come into blossom.Birds such as swallows (vlašťovka), starlings(špaček) or cuckoos(kukačka) come back from the south and we can hear their singing again.The whether in spring, especially in April, is changeable and unpredictable.Sometimes the sun shines and soon after it is overcast or it sleets, pours with rain or it may even snow.One can´t go out without
a raincoat, a thick sweater, boots, a cap or even a gloves.But when it clears up, the air is fresh and people go for walks and enjoy the good whether.
Summer begins on 21st June.It is my favourite season because students has two months´holidays.People are more interested in the whether because they take their holyday.Temperature rises to 25°C or more.In the morning there is often dew, the sky is clear and bright.Over the day the whether is mostly sunny and dead calm, no wind blows, it means that the wheather is sultry, hot and dry.When the drought lasts too long the land becomes arid and both people and nature long for rain.In summer rain often comes in form of storm.Storm is accompanied by getting dark, cooling down and breeze changing into strong wind.Then there is a crash of thunder and a flash of lightning and a heavy downpour.It is dangerous to stand near a tree because the lightning might hit it.Occasionally a windstorm can rise and it starts hailing or there is cloudburst.After the storm a rainbow may appear in the sky and you can see pools of water and puddles everywhere.Summer is also the time for strawberries, bilberries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries and harvest of corn.
Autumn begins on 23st September.In autumn nights get longer and days get shorter.We can enjoy a few day of Indian summer but the nice whether is away.In the gardens it is the time of harvest, we pick apples, pears, plums, potatoe and sugar beet.Grass turns yellow and gets dry.Many people go mushrooming.The leave of maples(javor), birches(bříza), ashes(jasan), beeches(buk), oaks(dub) and larches(modřín) become tinted yellow, orange, brown and red and make lovely contrast with evergreen conifers(firs-jedle, pines-borovice, spruces-smrk).Then the trees shed their leaves and by the November they will be bare.Birds set out together on the journey to the south.In autumn, the sky is often cloudy,mornings are dull and it looks like rain. It usually does not clear up by the day.The wheather becomes damp, chilly, wet and rainy and it may drizzle. People called wheather as awful, wretched or nasty.The first frost come and there may be hoarfrost on the grass and haze or fog in the morning, and cold wind blows from the north.People easily catch a cold or flu in such wheather.
Winter begins on 21st December.Typical winter wheather is snowfall, icy wind and hard frosts.We can enjoy skiing in the mountains covered with thick layer or fluffy snow.Sometimes the wind creates snowdrifts along the road and snowploughs must clear the roads.Children enjoy their winter pleasures, such as throwing snowballs, building snowman, sledging, sliding and skating on lakes and streams that are frozen over.Temperature sometimes drops under 20°C and then frost binds the ground, snow crunches uderfoot the hand get numb and stiff and fingers tingle with cold.But winters like that are rare in temperate zone.Finally the frost lets up and the thaw sets in, the snow melts and paths are full of mud and slush.Springs come earlier to the lowland while the snow-capped mountains we can see till April.