Weather patterns, do they always move in a consistent direction?

Factual Questions
21

TV Weather forecasts have shown the satellite and radar loops for several decades. I’m not sure how you missed it.

22

I’ve seen those simulations many times. They never made much impression on me. I was more interested in the actual forecast.

It got real, for me when I hear the rain pounding on my roof and open the weather app. See how wide an area the storm is covering covering.

Summertime, it’s not unusual to have a storm over my house. But it’s not raining 6 miles away in another part of town. The weather map is very useful than.

That’s just my reaction. It’ll vary for others. I was never much of a weather nerd until I got this App.

23

Sailors have known about this a lot longer. Sailing from North America to Europe in the temperate latitudes goes with the prevailing winds. Go down to the tropics and you can catch the trade winds to sail back to the west. The classic triangle trade took advantage of this.

Are you sure that’s the reason that site was selected? Most of the airports I’m aware of didn’t have anything like that level of foresight. Most of them were built when aviation was little more than a curiosity; as they became larger and busier they just had to make do with the location they had.

24

No, I’m not sure and can’t find anything definitive in its history – there may have been a fortuitous element of luck, too. The site was selected in 1936-37, and was originally intended to be a secondary airport, with the main one on an island just off downtown on Lake Ontario. As it turned out, the island airport became the regional one, and Toronto Pearson became the big one. Had the prevailing winds been opposite to what they are, however, it would have affected vast swaths of what is now prime real estate in the north part of the city. If nothing else, its westerly location is very, very fortuitous.

25

You can always count on weather following tried and true patterns.

For instance, hurricanes heading towards the Gulf invariably recurve into the Atlantic, which is why Galveston was so silly for building that seawall.

26

Don’t forget “Wrong Way Lenny”, the hurricane that traveled west to east across the Atlantic basin.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/remembering-wrong-way-hurrican/1678580

There are also tornadoes that turn the “wrong” way ( Anticyclonic).

27

… sandwich?

28

Clockwise tornadoes typically are spawned by clockwise rotating thunderstorms in the Northern Hemisphere… both these structures are small enough to be effected by local turbulence and terrain … the middle sized cyclones are almost always too big to have these local effects so they pretty much always spin counter-clockwise … although there’s nothing in the physics to say they can’t spin the other way … it’s just never been observed on Earth … I believe they’ve been spotted on Jupiter, but I can’t find a citation for that right now …

29

The satellite and radar loops aren’t simulations. They are the real weather that actually happened.
(Some weather does show sims of projected weather, but these are different.)

Something that does need to be said - there is a difference between the wind direction and the direction the weather is moving. It is perfectly reasonable for weather that involves a north wind to come from the west. For the most part, all weather does come from the west. No matter where you live.

On a more localised level fronts will sweep over you with a combination of the west-to-east movement of the host low pressure and the rotation of that system. So the direction you see the front pass over you from will vary (it will be largely determined by your latitude and the time of year - as the bands of weather migrate north and south over the course of the year with the seasons. There is year to year variation of the latitude of these bands as well, controlled by the Northern and Southern Annular Modes.)

As noted above there are some weather systems that buck the trend, and cyclonic storms are the big one. Other than coming from the equatorial regions, they travel a drunkards walk and are very difficult to predict.

30

Jesus man what is with all the ellipses?

31

Around here, usually in the fall, we sometimes get “wrong way” weather. One noticeable thing about it is the clouds are incredibly uniform and flat bottomed from horizon to horizon. Like someone put up a huge ceiling over everything. Despite the clouds there’s very little rain. Just the occasional drizzle.

32

That’s actually how most warnings come from the National Weather Service, actually. I think in watchwolf49’s case that’s just how he writes, but in this thread, I think writing like that is actually fairly topical. Example (spoilered for brevity):

[spoiler]URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PENDLETON OR
634 AM PST WED JAN 18 2017

…A WINTRY MIX OF PRECIPITATION WILL CONTINUE INTO THURSDAY…

.A PACIFIC STORM SYSTEM WILL AFFECT THE INTERIOR NORTHWEST
THROUGH THURSDAY. WARMER AIR RIDING OVER THE RESIDUAL ARCTIC
AIRMASS WILL RESULT IN FREEZING RAIN…SLEET…AND HIGHER
ELEVATION SNOW IN MANY AREAS OF SOUTH CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST
WASHINGTON AND NORTHEAST OREGON.

ORZ049-182245-
/O.CON.KPDT.BZ.W.0001.000000T0000Z-170119T2000Z/
GRANDE RONDE VALLEY-
INCLUDING THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS…COVE…ELGIN…LA GRANDE
634 AM PST WED JAN 18 2017

…BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON PST THURSDAY…

  • LOCATIONS…COVE…ELGIN…LA GRANDE.

  • SNOW ACCUMULATIONS…1 TO 2 INCHES.

  • ICE ACCUMULATIONS…UP TO A QUARTER OF AN INCH.

  • TIMING…PRECIPITATION WILL CONTINUE THROUGH TODAY AND WILL BE
    HEAVY AT TIMES. STRONG WINDS WILL CONTINUE THROUGH THURSDAY
    MORNING.

  • IMPACTS…SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW WILL MAKE ROADWAYS VERY
    HAZARDOUS. ICE ACCUMULATIONS…PLUS THE WINDS…CAN CAUSE
    DOWNED TREE LIMBS AND POWER LINES.

  • WINDS…SOUTH 30 TO 40 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 60 MPH.

  • VISIBILITIES…ONE QUARTER MILE OR LESS AT TIMES.

  • WEB PAGE: FOR A DETAILED VIEW OF THE HAZARD AREA VISIT
    HTTP://WWW.WRH.NOAA.GOV/MAP/?WFO=PDT.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…

A BLIZZARD WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE
EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. FALLING AND BLOWING SNOW WITH STRONG WINDS
AND POOR VISIBILITIES ARE LIKELY. THIS WILL LEAD TO WHITEOUT
CONDITIONS…MAKING TRAVEL EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. DO NOT TRAVEL. IF
YOU MUST TRAVEL…HAVE A WINTER SURVIVAL KIT WITH YOU. IF YOU GET
STRANDED…STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE.

&&

$$[/spoiler]

33

Here in the UK weather coming from the east usually means it’s going to get cold, at this time of year, as Europe (to our east) is generally cold and the Atlantic (to our west) is relatively warm.

Unfortunately, weather from the east is fairly rare (it depends on there being high pressure over Scandinavia, with the clockwise flow bringing east winds on its southern flank), so we usually end up with mild muck off the Atlantic instead.

But when we do get that rare set up, you can watch the snow showers piling in from the east on the radar.

34

Simulations?

35

I assume you mean tropical cyclones. They don’t originate around the equator. They can originate anywhere the conditions are favorable: warm waters, strong low pressure near the surface, weak high pressure above. Many do originate in the areas above the equator where there are conflicting air currents, but below 10 degrees they are rare to form due to wind shear.

36

I believe just a few weeks ago they decided to not use all caps any more.

Hmmm…

37

I think that until recently, they formatted everything to be able to be sent over ancient teletype machines, and they had limited punctuation.

38

Five bit ascii … That only gives us thirty-two characters … Twenty-six capital letters and a couple three punctuationing marks … Still needed a character for space and line feed … Ah … Those were the days …

RYRYRYRYRY

39

The parts with the colored temperature patterns and the radar imaging aren’t simulations, unless you think that any photograph or movie is a simulation.

40

Obviously, watchwolf49 is emulating the Herb Caen style of journalism.