Another wet morning

Good morning from the northwest end of Augusta, Maine where we are having our third wet, rainy and gusty morning. Today's temps are not expected to go above 60 degrees with rain on and off throughout the day.    

This morning's readings are:

a relative humidity of 97% with a Dew Point of 53.8ºF.

The temperature is 54.7ºF. There is no wind chill with as little wind as we have this morning. 

The wind velocity this morning is between 2.5 mph and 5.0 mph out of the east northeast. The wind is expected to increase during the day. Our highest gust recorded in the past month remains 23.3 mph. 

our Barometric pressure is 29.96 and rising.

Our rainfall in the past hour is 0.04 in., in the past 24 hours was 0.08 in. and over the past week a total of 2.50 in. has fallen

If you are in a region where prevailing wind is an issue during winter months, you might like to know just what "prevailing winds" are. Here in Maine, I can't say that we get a shift in them during the winter, but I will go on record as saying that our home, open on 2 sides to the wind, gets a very brutal north wind for almost the entire winter. This wind is otherwise absent during other seasons.

A brief explanation of prevailing winds appears below, more detailed information about them is available online through any web search engine.

 

Prevailing Winds are those winds which are formed as a result of various circulation patterns of the globe and they are a notable feature of weather phenomenon. One notable cause of them is simply the rotation of the earth.  

Formation of Prevailing Winds :

Prevailing winds are caused due to the unequal heating of the surface of the Earth. As the hot air goes up, cooler air moves to substitute it. In this way wind is formed. On reaching the Earth's troposphere the wind takes an orbital course around the Earth. The differences in heating gives rise to air circulations which flow from the equator to the poles in the upper parts of the atmosphere and vice versa in the lower parts.

Path of Prevailing Winds :

Prevailing winds generally blow from one region having high pressure to another which has low pressure. They do not follow the direct route from north to south between the belts of pressure. This happens because of the deflection of airflow by Coriolis force.

Types of Prevailing Winds :

Trade Winds : In olden days, sailors heavily depended on these prevailing winds to sail from Europe to America. The northeast trade winds are found between the latitudes of 30 to 0°N and the southeast trade winds occur between 0 to 30°S latitudes.

Westerlies : These prevailing winds are found below the Ferrel circulation cell in the mid latitudes.

Polar Easterlies are prevailing winds that are permanent cold winds which form a part of the polar circulation cell. These winds can mix with the Gulf Stream to form very violent and strong tornadoes and thunderstorms.

Jet Streams are prevailing winds which are very swift currents of the higher level.