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Game of Thrones climate and weather: The North
A breakdown of the weather and climate of The North from ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’
The cold winds are rising in The North. Winter is here.
It is perhaps fitting to start where George RR Martin’s books and the HBO series both began and will end. Winterfell, the ancestral home of House Stark, is at the heart of Westeros’ largest territory—known simply as ‘The North’. It is referred to by Cersei Lannister as “too big, too wild” to be held by an outsider, and by Roose Bolton as “bigger than the other six kingdoms combined.”
The North has a harsh, unforgiving and cold climate in the best of times. Both the series and the books begin with scenes of “summer snows”. The peoples, flora and fauna from this land are necessarily resilient. But its climate isn’t homogeneous. In fact, it varies greatly depending on location. Moat Cailin, near the Neck, experiences very different weather than the Last Hearth, just south of the wall.
*In this previous post, I geographically defined Westeros and the entire ASOIAF planet*
Defining The North
The North is many different things to different people. For most of the ‘civilized’ realm, it is comprised of the lands north of The Riverlands, from The…
