# Do weather systems travel around the world? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 16, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-weather-systems-travel-around-the-world/678981 "2014-01-16T17:40:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-weather-systems-travel-around-the-world/678981/1 "2014-01-16T17:40:09Z")
If we have a low pressure system move over us with accompaning storms, can that low pressure system continue to travel around the world and affect us again in a few days? I ask because the recent storms perhaps associated with the Polar Vortex event eventually lifted but more storms and cold weather is upon us. I was wondering if this second round of bad weather was the original storm system coming back to haunt us. Meterologists talk about A low pressure system coming into our area, not THE low pressure system coming back in. I just wonder if sometimes the system has been here before. additionally, are there websites that track storms over time as they pass through N.America, out to the Atlantic, then over Europe, Asia and back towards N.America again? I think it would be kind of cool to see the larger picture of systems globally instead of in my region only. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-weather-systems-travel-around-the-world/678981/2 "2014-01-16T17:47:02Z")
Judge for yourself at [Ten Years Of Earth’s Weather From Space In Nine Minutes.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD0_LVWasuA) ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-weather-systems-travel-around-the-world/678981/3 "2014-01-16T17:56:38Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > Judge for yourself at [Ten Years Of Earth’s Weather From Space In Nine Minutes.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD0_LVWasuA) Fascinating. I think it is particularly dramatic, the way so many Pacific storms hit Chile and die. ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-weather-systems-travel-around-the-world/678981/4 "2014-01-16T18:12:39Z")
Well thats REALLY cool! But I don’t think it allows me to follow a particular storm from N.A to europe, asia and back to N.A again. So I don’t think it shows me what I was asking about. Still a great thing to watch. ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-weather-systems-travel-around-the-world/678981/5 "2014-01-16T23:32:05Z")
I don’t think a single system would survive to circle the globe, but certain patterns can cause similar systems to form and repeat. For example, when the jet stream dips lower, cold air will go further south. So, in some locations, you can have cold weather for a few days, then warmer, then colder again just because of the jet stream. I’m not sure where you’re at or what you’re talking about right now, but this weekend is supposed to be cold, and it isn’t caused by the same thing as last week. Last week, we had a “polar vortex”, which is cold air that circulates around the Arctic. The Vortex often spins off some cold air that goes south and makes a nice cold snap for people living there, but the one we had last week was larger than normal. This weekend, we’re getting an Alberta Clipper or Canadian Clipper, which is a cold mass of air that forms in Canada, often near Alberta. I don’t know much aboyut them so I’ll take it from wiki: > [@](#): > > A clipper originates when warm, moist winds from the Pacific Ocean come into contact with the mountains in the provinces of British Columbia and then Alberta.[1][3] The air travels down the lee side of the mountains, often forming a chinook in Alberta, then develops into a storm over the Canadian prairies when it becomes entangled with the cold air mass that normally occupies the region in winter. The storm then slides southward and gets caught up in the jet stream, sending the storm barreling into central and eastern areas of North America.[4] > > Ironically, the chinook which in part originates the Alberta clipper usually brings relatively warm weather (often approaching 10C/50F in the depths of winter) to southern Alberta itself, and the term is therefore not used in Alberta. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-weather-systems-travel-around-the-world/678981/6 "2014-01-17T00:40:13Z")
General weather patterns, highs, lows, and their associated fronts, will persist for a while if nothing disturbs them but when they move from sea to land or vice versa, the pattern gets significantly disrupted. An extreme example of this can be seen with hurricanes (which are just intense low pressure systems). Hurricanes form in tropical waters and will “live” for as long as they have enough energy input in the form of heat and moisture. Once they make landfall or move to cooler latitudes they dissipate quite quickly. More mundane low and high pressure systems do the same thing but they persist a lot longer seeing as they don’t require a narrow set of conditions to exist. In a way weather patterns are similar to eddies in a stream, they will move away from where they are formed but once clear of the conditions that formed them in the first place they morph into something different. The low pressure systems south of the landmasses in the southern hemisphere would be a good place to see persistent weather patterns that may survive significant trips around the globe. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-weather-systems-travel-around-the-world/678981/7 "2014-01-17T00:46:42Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > Fascinating. I think it is particularly dramatic, the way so many Pacific storms hit Chile and die. What you are seeing there is the cold fronts (long bands of cloud associated with low pressure systems) coming up to the western ranges of Chile, being forced upward by the terrain, which causes the moisture to condense further and rain. As the system moves to the other side of the ranges the low pressure system still exists but the front attached to it has lost all its moisture and so the cloud that you see in the video has gone. In other words, the basic weather pattern, the low pressure system, is still there, but it’s lost the cloud that makes it visible. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-weather-systems-travel-around-the-world/678981/8 "2014-01-17T02:44:38Z")
> [@Fubaya](#): > > This weekend, we’re getting an Alberta Clipper or Canadian Clipper, which is a cold mass of air that forms in Canada, often near Alberta. > [@](#): > > **Alberta Clipper** - Low pressure forms east of the Rockies in Alberta, Canada and usually stays well north of Colorado. These storms are named "clipper’ because of their speed of 30 to 50 mph as they race eastward. Producing 1-6 inches of dry fluffy snow over the Northern Plains and Great Lakes, these storms rarely produce snow in Colorado, but can create strong Chinook winds over the northern Front Range. > [@](#): > > \*\*Colorado Hooker \*\*- This low pressure forms east of the Rockies in Colorado, or in the panhandle of Texas. Bringing heavy snow to the eastern plains of our state, the storm pulls in moisture from the Gulf of Mexico dumping 6 to 12 inches of rather wet snow along its path. Easterly winds swirling against the foothills create upslope conditions that can greatly increase snowfall in some areas. If the low develops over northeast Colorado, most of the snow will fall near the Wyoming border and farther north. If the low forms over southeast Colorado, Denver and the Front Range get heavy snow. This snow system is called a “hooker” because of the curved or hook shaped path it takes toward the Great Lakes. [http://www.9news.com/weather/resources/glossary/](http://www.9news.com/weather/resources/glossary/) ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-weather-systems-travel-around-the-world/678981/9 "2014-01-17T04:48:31Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > [http://www.9news.com/weather/resources/glossary/](http://www.9news.com/weather/resources/glossary/) I don’t follow, are you saying it’s not a clipper system? ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-weather-systems-travel-around-the-world/678981/10 "2014-01-17T05:03:12Z")
won’t happen. too many butterflies.