#FOTD387

The Beast from the East
So the Siberian chill has come over to the UK to say hi.
Snow days all round it seems.
The temperature has dropped to 7 degrees celsius colder than normal and with the wind chill it's feels pretty much arctic temperatures
How the air moves around our planet and the weather that comes with that movement of air is controlled by three main factors, gravity, the sun and the Coriolis effect
Gravity is an easy one is simply pulls the air towards the surface of the air
Next is the sun as it rises and falls it determines if the air stays at the Earth's surface or not.
During the day when the sun is beating down on the Earth then the air above the surface of the earth becomes warmer and rises this leaves behind an area of low pressure the air that rose spreads out, cools down and then sinks back down to the ground towards the area of low pressure that was initially created by the air rising.
These circling patterns or wind (convection currents for the physicists out there) operate on an intercontinental scale, transporting heat from the tropics to the poles
Same as when you turn the radiator on in your front room but think over the scale of the planet.
Now the third one, the Coriolis effect which is the deflection of objects moving in a straight path due to the Earth's rotation
Because of this affect the winds don't just travel north and south
Because of how the earth spins, like a spinning top the equator travels round at a much faster speed in comparison to the poles because it has further to travel as the earth rotates
So as air travels north from the equator it has extra momentum compared to the land which is rotating at a slower speed than the land where the air came from
So this effect makes it curve towards the east and of course air travelling southwards curves towards the west
Now what happened with us it that the northern polar jet stream (which is usually a nice meandering flow of air) caused by the Coriolis effect and air circulation actually flipped back on itself reversing the direction that it draws air from so instead of bringing us warmer air from the Atlantic it drew in cold air from the east l
This is why we have this huge blanket of snow over the UK.
Let's hope the northern polar jet stream sorts itself out soon or not..snow day is better than no day.
Link to article - theconversatio...
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