Friday, July 11, 2014

This Amazed Me

This morning, I came across a reference from the National Weather Surface that spoke of anticyclonic winds extending from the Arklatex to the Azores.  From Texas to Europe?? A quick check of the amazing Earth website showed this:
A little tough to see when the lines aren't moving, but darkish blue means slow winds, greenish is stronger winds tending to orange and red for the strongest winds (usually only at higher levels in the atmosphere - these are surface winds).  There really is a clockwise (anticyclonic) wind field from the coast of Spain to the coast of Florida and it actually does extend to Texas where it wraps up into the mainland of the US.  That blue area covering a couple of thousand miles of open Atlantic is the relative calm characteristic of high pressure centers at the surface.  What does this mean?  Pretty much nothing.   Just interesting.

The situation is somewhat different tonight, but the big picture summary of high pressure in control from the southeast coast of the US to Europe is still the same.  Earth is one of those places I could spend hours watching. 


2 comments:

  1. So that's why they forecast Sahara dust and no rain here today. First day in a couple of weeks with no rain.
    Terry
    Fla. (east coast about 100 miles north of Miami)

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  2. Interesting to look at the website. I don't see direct winds blowing from the Sahara over here now. I guess it doesn't need to be continuous as long as a cloud stays together all the way over.

    For you non-Floridians: it's pretty common to get Sahara dust here in the summer because we tend to get a long period when the prevailing winds blow east to west.

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