Weather Systems in Skyrim - Elder Scrolls: Leftover Lore

Man you also used Ean Grimm's market music. I associate that soundtrack with Skyrim.

WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

It's snows there in eso

I like the video but I feel like this guy is always holding in laugh

Thankfully my mods give snow to Solitude 🙂

thats possible or maybe they just made each part of the map a different season for variety

I always interpreted it as seasons, like riftons fall, windhelm and snowy cities deep winter, whiterun spring/fringes of winter, solitude falkreth and markarth is spring/summer

Don't forget magic. Magic can also influence the weather. Lazy but true.

Well solitude wasn’t always skyrims capital, idk what the timeline for the towers is, but if it was to be placed in an important city it would likely be Winterhold or Windhelm

I think one of the next big technological breakthroughs in open world games will be seasonal changes.

This is some really well-reasoned and thoroughly researched analysis. Congrats, you've managed to make fictional video game weather way more fascinating than it has any right to be. Subscribed!

I'm sorry? Did you somehow miss the gleam of those imperial soldiers?

Where would the hottest point in Skyrim be?

This one is sad that Winterhold is so cold

It's magic. Duh

Im here for lore and good teaching
Also skyrim

I rather like that the wind always blows in one direction, and alaways East for Skyrim is even better.

Yo this video is lit af, sorry it took me three years to see it.

What a great video to fall asleep to

What mod is that for Dawnstar? It looks amazing

as dumb as it sounds, always just assumed it wasn't snowy because the density of buildings and it being the only town with a sewer system and that would help melt snow on street level.

This video was too long. Halfway through it, I got hungry so I left it playing and went to the kitchen to fix myself a sandwich. But then I found out that I'm out of mayonnaise so I went to a store. There, I saw the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my whole life. But I'm a really shy person so I took up a three-year personality development course so I could introduce myself. She was very friendly and all, but unfortunately, she had a boyfriend. So I said, all good, I'm a mature person. I wanted the best for her and I harbored no illusion that I am the best person for her and she seemed happy with her boyfriend, so I didn't bother her anymore. But we kept in touch and we became friends and I got over my crush on her. Then she broke up with her boyfriend, we drank some alcohol because of it. I told her she'll be fine and I wished her well. I still think she's the most beautiful woman in the world, but like I said, I am over my crush on her. It was like five years already since I first saw her. Besides, I am quite happy with the friendship I developed with her. It was more important than a crush. So we kept hanging out, drinking, having coffee, and all. I had a girlfriend, she started dating other guys. My girlfriend wanted to live some other life without me in it, so I said, "Okay, I want the best for you and I want you to pursue your happiness." My lady friend and I drank alcohol about it, and she gave me the same advice I gave her when she was in that position and I became okay with the breakup immediately. But we were really drunk, so she spent the night in my apartment. I only have one bed, so you know what that means: She took the bed and I slept on the couch. But on the couch, I really can't sleep. Something was bothering me. So I tossed and turned for about three hours, then I finally couldn''t take it anymore, I stood up and went straight to my room where she's sleeping. I approached the bed, gently sat on it and I reached for her shoulder to pull her closer to me. She stirred and woke up. She asked what's up. I told her, "you know, the first time I saw you, I was watching a video and left it playing to get myself a sandwich then went to the store to get some mayo then I got so distracted by life that I forgot to finish the video." She said, "You know what, I've been wondering about a weird noise in your night drawer." So we opened that drawer, and lo and behold, there's my phone and this video still has two minutes of play time on it.

I'm wondering what the hell you do for a living, are you a meteorologist or historian or geologist or astronomer or memer

Please do a video on the towers I’m super interested in those!

These are the kind of stupid topics that people discuss from a 10 year old game that doesn’t have a sequel

I don't believe the theory that all of the towers were "built" by the merethic elves. Sure, I could believe they built the towers in Aldmeris and Highrock, but the adamantine tower in Cyrodil was built by the Ayleids (or their slaves), which are still elves so I guess that could count. However, the White and Red tower are both geological features which have mythic origins, the white tower being where life was breathed into the world according to the Nords and the Red tower being where Lorkhan's heart struck Nirn after being shot with an arrow.

How is it possible to sustain the population of skyrim when theyre getting snów in fucking August. I dont think the lore says anything about big raiding culture so they get food supplies. Very weird

To note, the Towers weren't built by the Merethic Elves (Aldmer), in fact none of them were, instead they're the ones who found the first tower, Ada-Mantia (the Adamantine Tower or Direnni Tower) which existed at the beginning of the world and worked out what it was.
The Altmer, their primary descendants built Crystal-Like-Law on the Summerset isle. The White-Gold Tower was built by the Ayleids in the style of the Adamantine Tower, Green-Sap was is a massive graht-oak grown by the Bosmer. Red Mountain was created when Auri-El shot Lorkhan's Heart from the top of Ada-Mantia, and where it fell on Vvardenfel is where Red Mountain was born.
Snow Throat is the most mysterious, it doesn't seem to have been built by mortals yet isn't as old as Ada-Mantia (or apparently the Crystal Tower or White Gold) despite being a mountain, however it's deeply connected to the Nords and humanity in general as it is theorised Kyne created men at its summit so perhaps she is its creator which is given credence by the quote "The Nords believe men were formed on this mountain when the sky breathed onto the land. Hence the Song of Return refers not only to Ysgramor's return to Tamriel after the destruction of Saarthal, but to the Nords' return to what they believe was their original homeland." — Pocket Guide to the Empire, First Edition. The sky of course being Kyne.
Lastly Orichalc was the tower of the Redguards on Yokuda, however it appears to have sunk along with most of the continent, it's not known exactly if it was built by the Redguards or the Lefthanded Elves, though considering Orichalc is supposedly also an avatar of the Yokudan(Redguard) god HoonDing who in helping the Redguards defeated the Lefthanded Elves "achieved permanence" by seemingly turning himself into a tower it seems likely that in a sense one could say that the ancient Redguards built it, beyond that not much is known about it, though unlike Snow Throat it at least has an origin story of some sort.

Great Video!

Frankly I'm surprised you didn't bother including the fact that magic could merely be used to control small portions of the weather, which is both present in the lore and mentioned in earlier games. Akin to how in Harry Potter they controlled weather at certain areas/times. Weather magic is present in TES, Ayleids and Dwemer controlled the weather with magic and magic machines, Daedric gods can control it, Maormer can control it, etc. Even the Psijic Order, heavily featured in the Mages Guild questline, have a long history of being weather wielding wizards. It's entirely possible that the Solitude's court mages and inventors could be preventing the city from precipitation collection. Redguards do it, dragons do it, Tsaesci do it, so why not Elisif and her court?

Lol the red arrow about two minutes in is almost where Im from, just the south part of the Seward peninsula

Not even thirty seconds in but I'm going to wager it's because Solitude has the mountains blocking the northern winds off the Sea of Ghosts from all but the east. It also probably has something to do with the methane gas likely bubbling up from the Morthal swamps. The strange lights in the marsh described by the townspeople actually being partly due to methane pockets igniting.

Thats my theory anyway.

I’ve always assumed that Skyrim is stuck around fall solstice for development constraints as the Rift is in fall foliage and more temperature, but boreal areas are not yet covered in snow.

I would guess it does snow In Solitude, but the snowfall might be delayed further into the year because of the blocking effects of mount Kilkreath and continued warm air blowing down from the south as winter has yet to cut it off.

Winterhold has trees near it, and so does the Pale, so that area probably experiences a short, but warm enough summer to support the growth of trees as it’s impossible/nonsensical for trees to be frozen 24/7 365 days of the year.

i love you

I think Tamriel as a whole will get dryer overtime looking at eso’s quest “Mistress of the Lake”. The former jungles of Tamriel might of applied the continent my started much more humid but over time it became drier and drier and continues to do so. Tamriel is a super continent and those get really get dry.

When I think of Nords, I just think of the naked dudes that got trolled by witches in Morrowind, or the one roaming around Mournhold complaining about the heat. They've always felt like a meme to me, and unfortunately Skyrim didn't help, imo. Probably just stems from the fact that I started with Morrowind, so the bar is set absurdly high by default, but I liked Oblivion even more, so idk. Nords just feel hollow.

In ESO Graymore Chapter, it does snowfall, but it could be because of the Harrowstorms though, hoever it was also 1000 years later that snowfall stops happening in Solitude.

Sweet roll = nutrients
Got it 👍

Can we be friends? I think of this stuff weekly 😂

Wow! love this and you! :)

It is a bit of a shame that they didn't implement seasons, but given that they didn't, I think that they chose the absolute best time of year to set the game in as it lets us look into this sort of interesting climate stuff. I think it's safe to say that in the winter, the entire country would be covered in snow, and in the middle of summer, the only snow and ice would likely be in the high mountains and the glaciers near winterhold, so its great to see this transition season. Great video!

Since my last Skyrim playthrough I've gotten a degree in Geography so this shit is right up my aisle. Thank you for this, it is appreciated, and my new Dovahkiin will choose his homestead according to comfortable weather conditions.

Im really glad theres people out there more intelligent than me capable of coming up with such fascinating tales

there might be a thing with how its close to the water cuz lake erie in new york always get snowed on but lake ontario has green leaves during the fall

i am so so late to this video but hi hello! i just found your channel and am absolutely loving it. seeing both the constellation vid and this one made me, a meteorologist, giddy with excitement. coincidentally, Any Austin released a similar video only a month ish ago, What Does Skyrim (Literally) Feel Like? (the same creator that made the stupidly popular 'where does x video game's rivers come from?' series), where i posted an absolute ESSAY of a comment lending my insights on his temperature delineations and figured my knowledge would be much more appreciated here. the following is copy-pasted from there and unedited bc i dont want to spend another two hours on it in case it gets ignored again LMAO. i do recommend watching his video to fully get the context, but without further waffling;

"As a meteorologist/climatologist, I generally agree with your temperature demarcations! You also did a very good job using the environment and foliage to make educated guesses on them, the winds (as best as one could, those are notoriously complicated even in the real world), and the humidity. That said, I feel that you over-estimated the temperatures of the northern holds. Other comments have theorized that the currents, for all we know, might be relatively warm, reaffirming the numbers you gave. However, we can disprove this... I'm going to explain my reasoning at length, but TLDR: ocean currents and broader TES lore

The first piece of key information is that, like our own planet, The Elder Scroll's Nirn turns from west to east, exemplified by the eastern rising sun. Another important factor to note is the frozen land of Atmora, north even of Skyrim's frigid 'Sea of Ghosts.' How far north is unknown as of writing. After dodging the various rocky archipelagos and icebergs, the sea gives way to an unending shelf of ice, the former home of Ysgramor's 500 companions (it was much nicer in his time!). This goes a bit beyond just the provinces you can traverse in this game, but the another piece is found by using maps of the greater continent of Tamriel, as well as community-made maps of the lands beyond (namely, Okiir's). Before I get too too into the weeds, a somewhat flawed approximation for Skyrim's climate here on Earth would be northern Russia! The provinces of High Rock to Solitude's west (Scandinavia, ish) and Hammerfell, west of Markarth, are peninsular, separated by the Iliac Bay (Baltic Sea, ish) form a pseudo-European continent (Hammerfell even has an Italian-eque boot!). But, as I was saying:

Nirn's rotatation to the east implies an apparent deflection force to the right in the northern hemisphere, aka the Coriolis 'Force.' [ This is why the vast N Pacific and relatively narrow N Atlantic oceans form clockwise gyres as opposed to CCW ones. The eastern US is relatively warm thanks to the western part of this gyre, the Gulf Stream, which carries into the temperate Norwegian stream. Without the equatorial warmth pushed poleward, Europe would become even colder. ] To our knowledge, there is no such America-sized continent in close proximity to Tamriel's west, only some medium-sized islands, before a vast ocean. This ocean, the Eltheric, is likely more similar in scope to the Pacific, separating Tamriel from the continent of Akivir, granting them much more travel time to cool. As this current heads toward Tamriel, cold freshwater melt from the Atmoran ice shelf likely prevents it from getting too far north. It eventually reaches High Rock, and depending on the exact geometry, some or most of the current will deflect south, while the remainder comes toward Skyrim. Time passes, and it chills further, being infiltrated by the arctic runoff. As we travel east with the current, then, we would expect the northern provinces of Skyrim to similarly get colder, the coldest being Winterhold and Eastmarch. A lack of sea ice is certainly an oddity, but should not raise Dawnstar's temperature to above freezing, in my opinion, since water with some salinity takes colder temperatures to freeze than fresh water, and we are uncertain how salty Skyrim's oceans are, even after accounting for the Atmoran runoff (and who knows how all of Dawnstar's mining pollution factors in...). Colder still are the the north reaches of Solthsteim of the Dragonborn DLC, a large island bordering Morrowind, but the ocean likely warms again upon entering Red Mountain's region, thanks to the massive volcano's geothermal output. Then again, that's outside the scope of this video, lol (as if all of this lore and two hours of comment writing isn't...). Finally, due to the province of Skyrim being surrounded on all sides by viciously tall mountains, most of its weather will be regulated by Arctic high pressure systems. Also, sheesh, imagine the downslope "santa ana" (katabatic) winds! I'm struggling to imagine a sufficiently developed midlatitude cyclone within the region, considering the lack of warm moisture sources and all of said terrain, but the flora and fauna do suggest a more temperate climate in its south... Maybe the mountains bordering Cyrodil and Hammerfell aren't tall enough to create a significant rain-shadow effect? Perhaps applying real-life sciences to a fictional land of magic and daedra is more foolish than I thought.


P.S. Looking at varied lore documents throughout writing this comment, there is a pretty significant argument in favor of general climate change, be it natural or magical, on Nirn. These include the freezing solid of Atmora, the unexplored climatic effects of such a large volcano erupting, and a once densely jungled Cyrodil. Then again, TES lore debates get really deep, really quickly. There're at least a few Flat Nirners and many who consider time to not be linear throughout the planet, with Atmora to the north being frozen in time after human migration— a "place without time"— and the mythical, lost Aldmeris to the south being a "time without a place," existing only in elvish cultural memory. I also came across an attempt at using Koppen classification to analyze Tamrielic climate, but I disagreed with their proposed ocean currents. Anyways, that's enough rambling."

if you read all this, i appreciate ya big <3 feel free to ask me anything or tell me to screw off lol!

oh yeah. this is awesome.

Oh my sweet summer child. Have You ever heard of Bruma?

That's my city! Lol