These various velocities described above come together to create what is known as the Coriolis effect, which in turn gives a typhoon, hurricane, or cyclone, a curved path.
When you're in the Northern hempisphere, the air heading north curves to the east as the air moving south curves to the west, giving the storm its counterclockwise direction. To embrace your inner third grade science junkie, check out the government's SciJinks site devoted to weather.
There, they reveal that the Coriolis effect is named after the French mathematician and physicist Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis and share various infographics and diagrams to help show how the Coriolis effect works. That means that they suck air into their center," a sidebar explains. Share: Question: If global weather generally moves west to east, why does a hurricane move east to west? Sign up for our email newsletter by entering your email address. Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close.
Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar. Mobile Newsletter chat subscribe. Forces of Nature. In tropical latitudes, nearer the equator, prevailing wind patterns push storms toward the west, because of a high-pressure axis called the subtropical ridge, which extends east-west of the storms. Closer to the equator, general easterly winds prevail. The wind pattern is driven partly by the Bermuda High, a high-pressure ridge that expands and contracts across the Atlantic during the summer months and is surrounded by a clockwise circulation.
Many tropical storms will skirt around the Bermuda High, enhancing the pattern of moving west, then north. The exact path of a storm can depend greatly on how far north or south the Bermuda High is at that time. And since the high is a weak system oftentimes due to a trough in the jet stream , tropical hurricanes can recurve back toward the east, according to NOAA.
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