# Which way does your weather usually move? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 21, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321 "2014-06-21T20:29:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321/1 "2014-06-21T20:29:58Z")
Do you live in a part of the world where the general weather pattern is for fronts and systems to move other than west to east? In Middle Tennessee it’s unusual for things to move east to west, less so from north to south, so it’s really more southwest to northeast as the basic movement. Right now, some pop-up rain cells are drifting northwest to southeast (more or less) but that’s not out of the ordinary for summer showers and storms. How about you and your area? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321/2 "2014-06-21T21:00:38Z")
The “Weather” moves in from the west, but individual storms often travel from east to west. Many of our [haboobs](http://epod.usra.edu/.a/6a0105371bb32c970b0177438b9b43970d-pi) come from the mountains to the east of town. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321/3 "2014-06-21T21:06:57Z")
The whole Southern California region is famous for its “Santa Ana” winds, hot, nasty, dry, sticky, sparky desert “foehn” winds that blow from the east to the west. They can turn a small brush-fire into a city-devouring holocaust. They’re brutal. But, otherwise, when those monsters aren’t blowing, the general pattern is a soft, gentle, easy, west-to-east breeze, slightly moist, with a wonderful cooling effect. Seven days of heaven…and one day of hell. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321/4 "2014-06-21T21:47:15Z")
I live in the Midwest and I like to watch the radar. I’ve never observed a system that wasn’t moving west-to-east and south-to-north, in all my years of observing. Of course, these are only the things that show up on a radar. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321/5 "2014-06-21T21:55:35Z")
Our weather systems move west to east, but the steering mechanisms for our biggest weather events move east to west. We get out big winter storms (2’+ of snow) when a low pressure system parks itself over the Four Corners and the counterclockwise circulation pulls up moisture from the gulf and throws it to the west up against the mountains. It is forced to rise, where it condenses and dumps the snow over the Front Range. ---
**Author:** ![moldmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ee59a6/32.png) [@moldmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moldmonkey)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321/6 "2014-06-21T22:00:37Z")
I live in Kansas now and it is west to east usually SW to NE. Growing up in South Dakota, it was NW to SE. Occasionally a individual storm would “back up” from the east. That was time to hit the basement especially if it had a greenish tint to the sky. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321/7 "2014-06-21T22:11:09Z")
Generally, from NNW to SSE. Yeah, lake effect snow. ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321/8 "2014-06-21T22:46:54Z")
West to east here in flyover country. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321/9 "2014-06-21T23:03:12Z")
Typically up to down. It rarely rains from the ground up but my gandpa swears he seen it. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321/10 "2014-06-21T23:18:11Z")
Prevailing winds and most systems move east to west here in Cayman in the northwest Caribbean. In winter occasionally a particularly powerful cold front drops down out of the Gulf of Mexico giving us a norwester’. And hurricanes and tropical systems can theoretically arrive from any direction, though tropical systems moving in from ESE to WSW is much more likely than other directions. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321/11 "2014-06-21T23:29:09Z")
In Tucson our storms usually sort of spiral in, we’re surrounded by mountains so we get a very unique combination of rain shadow effects. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321/12 "2014-06-22T01:34:44Z")
I’m in Wisconsin. The weather _generally_ moves in from west to east. Sometimes with a component of southward motion, sometimes northward. But we do periodically get low pressure systems over the Great Lakes which can bring some horrendous wind and waves and rain (or snow) in from the northeast. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321/13 "2014-06-22T02:28:45Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > Typically up to down. > It rarely rains from the ground up but my gandpa swears he seen it. But the lightning moves from the ground up, they say. If the mass of lightning moving up from the ground equals the mass of water moving down from the sky, you have conservation of location of weather mass. In northern California, weather seems to move from north to south, and perhaps west to east (coming in off the ocean). Storms north of the Bay Area or Sacramento will show up in the Bay Area or Sacramento or Stockton a day or two later. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-does-your-weather-usually-move/691321/14 "2014-06-22T03:15:05Z")
We often are drenched by hurricanes and tropical storms coming from the east. We’re too far inland to take a direct hit like Vietnam, but we do get soaked with rain. There’s often an influence from pressure systems in China straight north of us.