Portland, Oregon and New Orleans, Louisiana

Portland, Oregon and New Orleans, Louisiana

Introduction

Portland, Oregon is a city known for its rich and diverse in its agricultural regions. It is known as Bridge Town for its highest number of bridges built around the city (Conaway, 2009). On the other hand, New Orleans, Louisiana is a city with a rich history of more than 300 years. The city serves as the most important port for exporting goods. For this reason, the culture has combined traits from the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and beyond. New Orleans was the largest hit area from Hurricane Katrina, with disastrous outcomes (www.city-data.com, n.d).

Discussion

Provide an absolute location of the city and a physical geographic description of the area. You may want to include a map.

Absolute Location is defined as the exact position of a city, or a place, in terms of a recognized coordinate system. Most often, it involves telling the location of the city using latitude and longitude. The absolute location of Portland, Oregon is latitude of 45° 31' N and latitude of 122° 40' W (www.worldatlas.com, n.d). It is located at the north of Willamette Valley, midway between the lower Coast Range on the west side and the high Cascades Range on the east side. The city is 20 feet above sea level, at proximity to the union of the Columbia and Willamette rivers (Conaway, 2009).

On the other side of the country the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, is latitude of 29° 57' N and latitude of 90° 4' W (www.worldatlas.com, n.d). It spreads around the Mississippi River while having Lake Pontchartrain on the northern side connected to Lake Borgne. The geography of New Orleans is interesting as it is the lowest city of United States. It is located approximately 17 feet 95 meters) below sea level. The city prevents disasters through upstream dams and levees built on the Mississippi River (Bourne, 2007).

What is the climate type according to the Koppen climate classification system for each city?

The Köppen Climate Classification System is a widely used system for classification of climates of places all around the globe. According to this system, Portland, Oregon is classified as having Moist Subtropical Mid-Latitude Climates (C). This climate typically sees warm and humid summers; while the winters are milder. The convection thunderstorm is behind the precipitation during the summer months. The characteristic feature is the mid-latitude cyclone occurring during winters (Pidwirny, 2011).

Similarly, the climate of New Orleans is humid subtropical (Cfa). It sees milder winters and hot, humid, as well. During winters, the morning lows averages at 43 °F and daily highs of about 62 °F. Whereas in summers, lows are averages at 74 °F and high averages at 91°F (www.books.google.com, n.d).

Discuss the seasonal changes in weather, the temperature and precipitation averages and patterns, and air masses common to the area annually and seasonally. You may want to include a climograph depicting the locations precipitation and temperature monthly averages.

Portland, Oregon has clear seasonal ...