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The westerlies, anti-trades, [2] or prevailing westerlies, are prevailing winds from the west toward the east in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude. They originate from the high-pressure areas in the horse latitudes (about 30 degrees) and trend towards the poles and steer extratropical cyclones in this general manner. [ 3 ]
The westerlies play an important role in carrying the warm, equatorial waters and winds to the western coasts of continents, [13] [14] especially in the southern hemisphere because of its vast oceanic expanse. The westerlies explain why coastal Western North America tends to be wet, especially from Northern Washington to Alaska, during the winter.
The term originally derives from the early fourteenth century sense of trade (in late Middle English) still often meaning "path" or "track". [2] The Portuguese recognized the importance of the trade winds (then the volta do mar, meaning in Portuguese "turn of the sea" but also "return from the sea") in navigation in both the north and south Atlantic Ocean as early as the 15th century. [3]
The westerlies and trade winds Winds are part of Earth's atmospheric circulation Easterly winds, on average, dominate the flow pattern across the poles, westerly winds blow across the mid-latitudes of the Earth, polewards of the subtropical ridge , while easterlies again dominate the tropics .
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.
If they leave in late summer they will hit the trade winds sooner, since wind systems move north and south with the seasons. The problem was to get back again. The solution was the volta do mar, in which captains would sail northwest across the winds and currents until they found the westerlies and were blown back to Europe.
A further explanation is that this naming first appeared in the English translation of a German book [example needed] where Rossbreiten was incorrectly understood as Pferdbreiten. The 'Ross latitudes' were named after the Englishman who described them first but could have been mistranslated, as Pferd and Ross are German synonyms for a horse. An ...
The quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) is a quasiperiodic oscillation of the equatorial zonal wind between easterlies and westerlies in the tropical stratosphere with a mean period of 28 to 29 months. The alternating wind regimes develop at the top of the lower stratosphere and propagate downwards at about 1 km (0.6 mi) per month until they are ...