As in all other things, the Lone-lands provide a climate somewhat more harsh and unwelcoming than the lands around it.
Winter
Compared to the Soft Lands around Bree, the Lone-lands do not get noticeably colder by winter, and, dry as they are, get considerably less snow. Soft-Landers may imagine that provides for milder winters, and may continue to feel this way as they travel through during that season, but change their minds if they linger in the colder months. The largely unbroken landscape provides ideal conditions for winds to blow, long, hard, and sustained. For a traveler, the winds provide a discomfort, but are easily imagined as a temporary trouble, endured and then forgotten. Remain for more than a few days, however, and the steady, constant wind is deceptively dangerous. Air that is not very cold feels colder in wind, but strips away the flame of life even more quickly than the feeling suggests, and an unwary wanderer in an unsheltered dale can suffer grave injuries without even feeling them. Shelter is essential; standing by a fire is not enough in gusts, and an experienced scout always knows where is the nearest wind-break within which one can huddle to get a break from the winds.
While it snows less than in the Soft Lands, what snow does fall is often taken up by the wind to make visibility drop to nothing. There is one comfort: in such conditions, goblins retreat to their hidey-holes, as they cannot see through blowing snow any better than we can. All one can do is take shelter in such snow-blind conditions and wait out the storm, unless one is on the road, where its stones provide guidance. Fortunately they rarely last more than an hour or two, and do not generally prove more than an inconvenience.
Summer
Though the same Sun shines on the Lone-lands as Bree, the summers can prove notably hotter there than in the Soft Lands. Perhaps the yellow bunchgrass and gorse ground cover catches and reflects more of the Sun's warmth, compared to green grass and pleasant rivulets; or perhaps the hills direct warmth like a vast river through the plains. The winds, which remain steady in summer as in winter, provide some relief, but also some danger: on a particularly hot day, one can become dried out quickly without a good supply of drinking water, and the wind will deceive the senses into not realizing how hot it actually is.
Rain is rare, and most of what falls is light drizzle that soaks into the ground immediately, or evaporates so quickly, that it leaves the soil scarcely any damper than before. It is enough to sustain the sedge, gorse, and other hardy plants of the Lone-lands (see the Flora chapter), but not much more.
