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The strongest westerly winds in the middle latitudes can come in the roaring forties, between 40 and 50 degrees south latitude. The westerlies play an important role in carrying the warm, equatorial waters and winds to the western coasts of continents, especially in the southern hemisphere because of its vast oceanic expanse.
The Southern Annular Mode is usually defined as the difference in the zonal mean sea level pressure at 40°S (mid-latitudes) and 65°S (Antarctica). [1]The Antarctic oscillation (AAO, to distinguish it from the Arctic oscillation or AO), also known as the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), is a low-frequency mode of atmospheric variability of the southern hemisphere that is defined as a belt of ...
Foehn winds usually occur when the westerly wind belt moves northwards. [7]The foehn effect on the coastal plains of southeastern Australia is mostly linked with the passage of a deep low pressure system or westerly cold fronts across the Great Australian Bight and southeastern Australia that cause strong winds to reorient virtually perpendicular to some parts of the Great Dividing Range ...
The wind belts girdling the planet are organised into three cells in each hemisphere—the Hadley cell, the Ferrel cell, and the polar cell. Those cells exist in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The vast bulk of the atmospheric motion occurs in the Hadley cell.
An alternative name for the ACC is the West Wind Drift. The ACC is the dominant circulation feature of the Southern Ocean and has a mean transport estimated at 100–150 Sverdrups (Sv, million m 3 /s), [ 1 ] or possibly even higher, [ 2 ] making it the largest ocean current.
In meteorology, prevailing wind in a region of the Earth's surface is a surface wind that blows predominantly from a particular direction. The dominant winds are the trends in direction of wind with the highest speed over a particular point on the Earth's surface at any given time.
This two-gyre circulation in the North Pacific is driven by the trade and westerly winds. [2] This is one of the best examples of all of Earth's oceans where these winds drive a two-gyre circulation. Physical characteristics like weak thermohaline circulation in the North Pacific and the fact that it is mostly blocked by land in the north, also ...
The European Monsoon (more commonly known as the return of the westerlies) is the result of a resurgence of westerly winds from the Atlantic, where they become loaded with wind and rain. [60] These westerly winds are a common phenomenon during the European winter, but they ease as spring approaches in late March and through April and May.