What makes winds form

Previously, strong winds had prevented such a flight. Wind can blow anywhere, anytime, and in any direction. It is also responsible for the creation of swells and waves. When the wind blows over the ocean's surface, it creates a more or less vast fetch, sometimes located thousands of miles away from continental shores.

The wind fetch is home to ripples of various sizes that start grouping and forming swells. These wave trains travel long distances before reaching the coastline. Discover the windiest places on Planet Earth.

A tragically beautiful windsurfing wipeout at Teahupoo. Robby Naish: the ultimate windsurfer and water sports icon. How to body drag in windsurfing. What is wind? How is wind created? The wind is the result of uneven heating of the Earth's surface. The most extreme tornado ever recorded occurred on March 18, The tornado destroyed local communications, making warnings for the next town nearly impossible. The Tri-State Tornado killed people in 3. The best protection against a tornado is early warning.

In areas where tornadoes are common, many communities have tornado warning systems. In Minnesota, for example, tall towers throughout neighborhoods sound an alarm if a tornado is near.

Measuring Winds Wind is often measured in terms of wind shear. Wind shear is a difference in wind speed and direction over a set distance in the atmosphere. Wind shear is measured both horizontally and vertically. Wind shear is measured in meters per second times kilometers of height. Under normal conditions, the winds move much faster higher in the atmosphere, creating high wind shear in high altitudes.

Wind shear is higher near the coast, for example. The amount of force that wind is generating is measured according to the Beaufort scale. The scale is named for Sir Francis Beaufort, who established a system for describing wind force in for the British Royal Navy. The Beaufort scale has 17 levels of wind force. An anemometer is a device for measuring wind speed. Anemometers are used with tornado data collectors, which measure the velocity , precipitation, and pressure of tornadoes.

The scale has six categories that designate increasing damage. In , the Enhanced Fujita Scale was established in the U.

The Enhanced Fujita Scale has 28 categories, with the strongest cataloging damage to hardwood and softwood trees. Hurricanes are measured using the Saffir-Simpson scale.

In addition to tropical depressions and tropical storms, there are five categories of hurricanes. The most powerful, Category 5, is measured by winds whipping at kph mph. Impact on Climate Wind is a major factor in determining weather and climate.

Wind carries heat, moisture, pollutants, and pollen to new areas. Many daily weather patterns depend on wind. A coastal region, for instance, undergoes changes in wind direction daily. The sun heats the land more quickly than the water.

Warm air above the land rises, and cooler air above the water moves in over the land, creating an inland breeze. Coastal communities are usually much cooler than their inland neighbors. Rain shadow s are created as wind interacts with a mountain range.

As wind approaches a mountain, it brings moisture with it, which condense s as rain and other precipitation before coming over the crest of the mountain. Winds also help drive ocean surface currents around the world.

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current transports cold, nutrient-rich water around Antarctica. Due to the Gulf Stream, Northern Europe enjoys a much warmer, milder climate than other areas at similar latitudes, such as the U. Impact on Ecology Wind has the power to move particles of earth—usually dust or sand—in great quantities, and over far distances.

Dust from the Sahara crosses the Atlantic to create hazy sunsets in the Caribbean. Winds transport volcanic ash and debris for thousands of kilometers. The massive eruption of Krakatoa, an island volcano in Indonesia, had even more dramatic atmospheric results. Winds carried volcanic ash and debris high in the atmosphere across the globe.

Europe endured years of cold, damp summers and pink sunsets. In some cases, this takes places in the desert, as sand dune s migrate and change shape over time. The Altiplano region of South America has dramatically shaped ventifact s—rocks carved by the wind-driven sand and ice.

Loess , a sediment that can develop into one of the richest soils for farming, is easily swept up by wind. Even when farmers take precautions to protect it, the wind can erode up to 2. The most famous example of this devastating windstorm is probably the Dust Bowl of s North America.

Dust Bowl storms could reduce visibility to a few feet, and earned names like "Black Blizzards. However devastating to the economy, wind is an important way plants disperse seed s. This form of seed dispersal is called anemochory. Plants that rely on anemochory produce hundreds and even thousands of seeds. Some of the most familiar seeds dispersed by the wind are those of the fuzzy dandelion. Wind Energy Wind has been used as a source of energy for more than a thousand years—it has pushed ships around the globe and been captured in windmill s to pump water; it has turned giant stones to grind grains, make paper, saw logs, and crush ore.

Today, most wind energy is used to generate electricity for homes, businesses, hospitals, schools, and industry. Wind is a renewable resource that does not directly cause pollution. Wind energy is harnessed through powerful turbine s. Wind turbines have a tall tubular tower with two or three propeller-like blades rotating at the top. When the wind turns the blades, the blades turn a generator and create electricity. Often, wind turbines are collected in windy areas in arrays known as wind farm s.

Many wind farms have been established on mountains, in valleys, and offshore, as the air from the ocean interacts with land-air. Some people think wind turbines are ugly and complain about the noise they make. The slowly rotating blades can also kill birds and bats—but not nearly as many as cars, power lines, and high-rise buildings. The economic drawback to wind farms, however, is the wind itself.

If it's not blowing, there's no electricity generated. Still, use of wind energy has more than quadrupled between and Germany has the most installed wind energy capacity, followed by Spain, the United States, India, and Denmark.

Development is also growing quickly in France and China. Kamikaze Like the Protestant Wind, kamikaze were specific historical winds. Kamikazetranslated as divine windswere major typhoons that destroyed the invading Mongolian Navy off the coast of Japan in the late s.

In the 20th century, kamikaze became the informal name for suicide attacks during World War II. The official name for kamikaze strategy is tokktai. Protestant Wind The Protestant Wind refers to the lucky weather encountered by the British Navy of the 16thth centuries. Britain had just become a Protestant nation. Anemoi Deities representing the winds play an important role in mythologies around the world.

In Europe, ancient Greek myths refer to the Anemoi , or wind gods, as Boreas north wind , Eurus east wind , Notus south wind , and Zephyrus west wind. In Aztec mythology, the four wind gods were Mictlanpachecatl north wind , Tlalocayotl east wind , Vitztlampaehecatl south wind , and Cihuatecayotl west wind.

Many people were confined to their homes for a week. The devastation and inconvenience led urban leaders to invest in the creation of the first subway system in the U. Age of Sail The ability of ships to sail with powerful trade winds helped determine the political and engineering history of the Age of Exploration, sometimes nicknamed the Age of Sail. Spanish, Portuguese, and British ships were quick, relatively easy to maneuver, and their large, complex series of sails exploited trade winds and southern westerlies to travel across the ocean.

Chicago is a lakeside city that experiences cool breezes coming off Lake Michigan. It is not, however, any windier than most other cities. The nickname most likely came from Chicagos relationship with Cincinnati, Ohio, in the 19th century. Their industrial economies, as well as their baseball teams, were fiercely competitive.

Cincinnati leaders dismissed Chicago baseball players and businesses as being insubstantial and meaninglesswindy and full of hot air. Extraterrestrial Winds The same forces that cause winds on Earthuneven heating by the sun and the planets rotationcause other planets to develop strong winds.

Jupiters famous Great Red Spot is actually a centuries-old hurricane-like storm, swirling at around kph mph. The strongest winds in the solar system, however, belong to its outermost planet, Neptune.

Neptunian winds whip at speeds up to 2, kph 1, mph. Extrasolar planets those outside our solar system have even faster winds. The extrasolar planets of 51 Pegasi have winds that blow 14, kph 9, mph!

Gone with the Loo There are dozens of names for winds that blow through specific regions. Some, like the noreasters that blow from the northeast down the East Coast, are not creatively named. Here are some others: barber : cold, moisture-laden wind that freezes on contact with hair and beards. Coromuel : strong, warm wind that blows from afternoon to early morning through La Paz, Baja California, Mexico.

The wind was named after British sailor Samuel Cromwell, whose name the locals could not pronounce. Hawk : strong, cool breeze blowing westward through Chicago from Lake Michigan. The Levant, the Mideast region in the eastern Mediterranean, does not experience the levant. Loo : strong, hot summer wind that blows across northern India from the arid deserts to the west, and is only stopped by the arrival of the monsoon.

The Loo is such a powerful ecological and cultural force that ice creams and sherbets are consumed to combat Loo-induced fatigue. November witch : hurricane-force winds that develop as cold Arctic air masses meet warm air from the Gulf over the Great Lakes. Pembrokeshire Dangler : area where prevailing winds converge and cause a line of cold rain and snow to dangle north-south across the Irish Sea.

Santa Anas : hot, dry winds that blow from the deserts and mountains of inland California to the coast. Santa Anas are often responsible for spreading Southern Californias destructive wildfires, earning them the nickname murder winds. Siroccos carry tons of dust and sand throughout northern Africa, and contribute to wet weather as they reach Europe. Also called the West Wind Drift. The Coriolis effect makes storms swirl clockwise in the Southern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere.

Usually, hurricanes refer to cyclones that form over the Atlantic Ocean. High-pressure systems are usually associated with clear weather.

Hurricanes are the same thing as typhoons, but usually located in the Atlantic Ocean region. Also known as the Monsoon Zone. Low-pressure systems are often associated with storms. Also called a temperate zone. Monsoon usually refers to the winds of the Indian Ocean and South Asia, which often bring heavy rains. Also called a storm tide. Tropical storms are less powerful than cyclones and hurricanes. Typhoons are the same thing as hurricanes, but usually located in the Pacific or Indian Ocean region.

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Andrew Turgeon Elizabeth Morse. Mary Crooks, National Geographic Society. These sinking air masses push or displace other air masses away as they flow along the ground towards the equator Fig. Polar air becomes warmer as it moves away from the poles. Air masses at the equator move in the opposite manner. At the equator, hot, moist, and less-dense air rises.

At higher altitudes, this air gradually cools, forming precipitation, and dries out as it moves away from the equator and toward the poles. The sinking of polar air and rising of equatorial air form a large-scale global circulation pattern and explains why winds generally travel from north to south in the Northern hemisphere Fig.

Unequal heating of the earth affects pressure and density, and assists in driving wind flow patterns. The earth constantly rotates, or spins, on its axis counter-clockwise, from the west towards the east. The earth has a greater circumference at the equator than near the poles, so in one rotation, a point on the equator will cover a greater distance than a point near the poles, in the same amount of time. This means land and water near the poles is traveling from west to east at a few kilometers an hour, but land and water at the equator is moving in the same direction at more than two thousand kilometers an hour.

The atmosphere surrounding the earth rotates at the same speed as the land and the ocean surface beneath it because air masses are loosely attached to the earth's surface by gravity. Air masses located about 50 kilometers south of the North Pole are moving at a rate of 7.

The differential rotation of the higher latitudes compared to the equator affects the movement of air masses and water on earth.

Explore the effect of a rotating earth on air masses traveling north and south across the globe. Warm, dense, high-pressure air masses tend to flow away from the equator towards cool, less dense, low-pressure air masses at the poles. However, air masses do not move north or south in a direct, straightforward line due to the rotation of the earth and the Coriolis effect.

The Coriolis effect is the deflection of air and water masses by the rotation of the earth. Differences in rotational velocity between air masses located near the equator and those located near the poles deflect air circulation to the right in the Northern Hemisphere Fig.

This deflective force of the Coriolis effect is greatest near the poles and weakest at the equator. The Coriolis effect operates over a period of weeks because the movement of air masses is relatively slow. The Coriolis effect determines the movement of large-scale winds as well as localized high- and low-pressure systems. For example, in the Northern Hemisphere, the movement of air masses is deflected to the right as they approach low-pressure systems Fig.

This deflection causes the low-pressure systems, like hurricanes, to spiral counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere Fig. Low-pressure systems spiral clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere because air mass movement is deflected to the left Fig. This document may be freely reproduced and distributed for non-profit educational purposes. Skip to main content. Search form Search. Join The Community Request new password. Main menu About this Site Table of Contents.

Wind Formation. MS-ESS Develop and use a model to describe how unequal heating and rotation of the Earth cause patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation that determine regional climates. The content and activity in this topic will work towards building an understanding of the physical processes that form winds and how these processes contribute to weather and climate.

Atmospheric Pressure and Density Air has weight and is pulled towards the surface of the earth by gravity. Wind Movement Differences in air pressure can result in the movement of air masses from one location to another. Evaporation, Condensation, and Precipitation Evaporation is the physical change of a liquid into a gas.

Further Investigations.