Weather patterns

[blackfive]

Why do major prevailing weather systems always travel from West to East?

[Rev.Crowley]

It's because of the way the Earth turns. When the Earth is viewed from space, cloud patters form great swirls (known as cyclonic patterning) across the continents. In the Northern hemispher they turn anti-clockwise, in the Southern Hemispher clockwise as the Earth turns from left to right, dragging the atmosphere and its cloud formations in line with the equator. In the British Isles, we get prevailing winds blowing eastwards off the Atlantic.

[Hippy]

Well, they do in the northern hemisphere, but things are reversed in the southern.

It is the effect of the earth's rotation around its axis, and was first documented by Gaspard de Coriolis and the effect is named after him, the Coriolis or Coreolis effect.
See http://www.doc.mmu.ac.uk/aric/eae/Atmosphere/Older
/Coriolis_Force.html
for more info.

[blackfive]

Not so Hippy. Here in Australia, major weather systems ALWAYS travel from West to East as they do in the Northern Hemisphere.

[wildwood]

Give yourself 3 stars blackfive.

[Gef]

Correct blackfive but surely it's clockwise in the northern hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the south.

[KEJ2000]

Everyone please read the following Web page, from the leading myth-debunking Website in the USA! http://www.snopes.com/science/coriolis.htm