While the dominant modes of wintertime atmospheric variability have been well documented, less attention has been paid to the patterns present in the summer season. We present a seasonal intercomparison of the major modes of climatic variability for surface air temperature, sea level pressure, and lower tropospheric temperature for the domain poleward of 20 degrees N. The patterns which explain the most variability in each season are identified and the coherency between variables in each season is explored. The analysis utilizes data from the CRU 2.0 SAT data set, the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis, the MSU lower tropospheric temperature record, and the European Reanalysis.