Why is it always windy

❝Winds on Earth are a natural daily occurrence. These winds are associated with global weather patterns and interactions between air masses of differing temperatures and humidity.

Global winds come from any direction and travel at various speeds and affect large areas of Earth at the same time—any area, at any time.

The winds that only impact small areas of Earth's surface are named local winds. Local winds are dependent on the local weather patterns and conditions.

The wind seems to constantly blow on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and it frequently changes directions.

Children of all ages will have a blast fishing and exploring the calm waters of the sounds behind the Outer Banks barrier islands with fishing guide and longtime educator, Captain Lenny.

OBX fishing for kids »

Summer flounder

The scientific explanation for this begins with the relationship between sunlight and air pressure. The process starts when the sun rises each morning. It takes eight minutes of light-speed travel for the sun's radiation to arrive at Earth's surface. Solid objects such as rocks, sand, roads, and buildings absorb this radiation faster and get hotter than liquids such as our lakes, ponds, and oceans.

Near the ocean, the beach sands and roads heat up much quicker and get much hotter than the ocean water. This uneven heating of Earth sets up areas of different air pressure zones—the hotter areas being low pressure and the cooler areas being high pressure.

Whenever this occurs, the lighter, less dense air from warmer low pressure zones will rise and be replaced with the heavier, denser, and colder air of the high pressure zones. This horizontal movement of air from high to low is wind.

The anatomy of a sea breeze

Areas that border oceans or other large bodies of water experience this on an almost daily schedule. The land heats up first in the morning, creating a low pressure zone. The ocean heats up much slower and becomes relatively cooler than the beach making it a high pressure zone. The air moves from the water to the land each morning forming a sea breeze. These pressure zones might equal out later in the day and the winds may diminish. However, as the sun sets, the scenario reverses and the pressures zones do a flip-flop. The wind direction changes from beach to ocean and a land breeze forms.

This combination of local and global winds cause the almost perpetual breezes that blow on the Outer Banks.

One last consideration is how winds are named. Winds are always named for the direction that they arrive from. A north wind comes from the north but blows in a southerly direction. A sea breeze blows from the ocean towards the beach.

Questions? Comments? Feel free to contact me.❞

⚓ Captain Lenny

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC) - Have you ever wondered why one day the wind is calm and the next day, the winds are so strong?

It all has to do with pressure. Even when you don’t always feel the wind, it is never completely still. Air molecules are constantly bouncing around and bumping up against things all around us. All of the colliding creates a force, that force over a given area creates pressure. The air has mass and gravity drags that mass down to the ground. It doesn’t fall straight down but goes out in all directions.

When the sun heats the earth, the heat is not evenly distributed. It heats the earth’s surface unevenly. Heat gets transferred from the air which can create areas of low pressure and high pressure. These pressure differences between the two, causes wind to blow.

Air will flow from high pressure to low pressure. The atmosphere is not attached to the earth and the earth is always turning on its axis which causes wind to rotate, this is known as the Coriolis effect. Wind will blow counterclockwise around an area of low pressure and clockwise around high pressure for the northern hemisphere.

When pressure changes fast over a short distance this causes, gusty, fast moving wind. This most often occurs near cold fronts, areas of low pressure and the jet stream. Wind can blow even faster when it is forced into a narrow area, for example between buildings and mountain passes.

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Severe weather warnings for damaging winds are stretching across four states today, spanning an area from Western Australia to NSW.

This comes after wind gusts of 135 km/h were recorded in South Australia on Saturday and Western Australia early on Tuesday morning.

So, what's making it so windy in Australia this week?

The image below shows what our side of Earth looked like at 4pm AEDT on Tuesday. This spectacular view was captured by the Himawari-8 satellite from close to 35,800 kilometres above the ground.

Image: Himawari-8 visible ture colour satellite image captured at 4pm AEST on Tuesday, July 27. The green circles have been added to highlight a pair of low pressure systems.

The green circles on the image above highlight two deep low pressure systems. While these lows are located a few thousand kilometres to the south of Australia, they are playing a key role in producing this week's wild winds.

Wind occurs when air flows between two areas of contrasting pressure. It's simply the atmosphere trying to restore equilibrium when too much pressure builds up in one area and much lower pressure develops somewhere nearby.

Meteorologists monitor air pressure near the ground using synoptic charts. These maps use unbroken lines, called isobars, to connect areas that have the same atmospheric pressure at sea level. The map below shows a synoptic chart at 4pm AEST on Tuesday.

Image: Mean sea level pressure at 4pm AEST on Tuesday, July 27, according to the ECMWF model.

The chart above has a lot of white lines sitting close together to the south of Australia. These tightly packed isobars mean there is a large pressure gradient between the low pressure systems at the bottom of the image and areas of high pressure over and near Australia.

This large pressure gradient is creating powerful winds as the atmosphere attempts to balance things out. Unfortunately, Australia just happens to be in the firing line of this atmospheric stand-off.

Image: Surface wind speed and direction at 4pm AEST on Tuesday, July 27, according to the ECMWF model.

As a result, damaging winds will spread across parts of Western Australia, South Australia, NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT between Tuesday and Friday. Be sure to check the latest warnings in your state.

You've probably noticed over the past few weeks that there are a lot of windy days in the spring. Here in Colorado, we've had several days with gusts exceeding 40 knots in the past month. Similar high-wind days have been happening across much of the United States.

So why is it so windy in the spring? We sat down with National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist Scott Entrekin of the Boulder, Colorado office to discuss why the winds seem to pick up during certain seasons, leaving you stuck on the ground.

How Is Wind Created?

Before we start to unpack why winds become so strong in the spring, let's quickly review where wind comes from.

How is wind created? The short answer: a difference in air pressure.

High-pressure air seeks low-pressure air as it attempts to find its' equilibrium, causing anything from a gentle breeze to a gale-force wind.

You've probably heard that all weather phenomena are a result of the uneven heating of the earth's surface, but how does this relate to the wind?

Since the earth's surface is not uniform, the sun heats things like grass, sand, and water differently, leading to different air temperatures. This temperature gradient changes the density of air, causing rising and sinking motions.

So what determines the strength of the wind? There are several factors, which we'll cover in the sections below.

The Jetstream

The polar jetstream doesn't stay in one position all year, "[the] main polar jet is way north through the Arctic/Canada during the summer months..." says Entrekin, and in the winter it usually moves south and intensifies. Think of it like geese migrating, south in the winter, north in the summer.

Entrekin also says "jet[stream] positions and especially the entrance and exit regions of the jet will determine the amount of dynamical lift/ascent and hence give you clouds and precipitation."

According to Entrekin, there is a correlation between the intensity of the jetstream with surface winds.

High-pressure air seeks lower-pressure air. The closer the region of opposing pressures, the stronger the winds will be. This is called a pressure gradient.

You can see a visualization of pressure gradients on surface analysis prog charts.

"The closer the isobars are together, the tighter the pressure gradient and hence the stronger the winds," says Entrekin.

You can also determine the direction the wind is blowing by looking at the surface analysis chart. As a result of the earth's rotation in the northern hemisphere, low-pressure systems will spin to the left (counter-clockwise), and high-pressure systems will spin to the right (clockwise).

Using this knowledge, along with the fact that winds around these pressure systems follow the isobars, you can determine the wind direction along your route.

As we enter the spring months of the year, the sun's angle relative to the surface of the earth increases, allowing more direct exposure to the ground causing warm air to rise. When this warm air rises, air rushes in to 'fill' in where it left, causing greater surface winds.

Hot air is more buoyant, which will cause a rising action, while cooler air wants to sink because it is denser.

In the fall and spring, stronger fronts form. This "bigger contrast with cold and warm air masses... can increase wind speeds on the surface." says Entrekin.

Like many weather phenomena, the higher winds of spring in the US aren't just the product of any one event. They're a combination of the shift of the jetstream, the sun's angle on the earth, and air masses.

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