This is literally driving me crazy.
I searched and searched, everyone says it’s “coriolis force”.
Problem is, if it’s coriolis force, then hurricane in Northern Hemisphere would spin to the right, making is CLOCKWISE, not counter-clockwise.
An example is this video.
Apparently, that guy is a retard. He clearly says the Coriolis effect would spin the hurricane to the right, yet in the graph it’s obviously to the left.
Help please. This is really driving me insane. :mad:
It is coriolis force. Why do you think it should spin clockwise in the northern hemisphere?
In a hurricane the low level winds are moving in to the low pressure centre of the storm. Coriolis force causes objects, in this case the airmass, to veer right in the northern hemisphere and left in the southern hemisphere. Air moving into the storm centre from the south veers to the east and air entering the storm from the north veers to the west. The result is an anti-clockwise storm.
It is the Coriolis force. The rule (in the northern hemisphere) is that if you stand with the wind at your back, the low pressure will be on your left (Buys-Ballot’s Law). This means that wind circulates clockwise around a high-pressure area and anti-clockwise around a low-pressure area.
You are confusing two different things. The air is forced to move to the right as it moves toward the centre of the storm, this actually results in air moving counterclockwise around the centre. It doesn’t cause the storm to rotate to the right.
If it helps, draw a circle with a dot in the middle. That dot is the low pressure centre of the storm. Now draw arrows going from the edge of the circle toward, but not through, the centre. The arrows represent the inward flow of air. Now turn each of those arrows 90º to the right, that’s what coriolis does. See how that causes the entire system to spin left? (using your terminology.)
What kind of logic is that? The red-underlined part seems totaly self-contradicting.
Thanks. This totally helped. Now I finally understand.
I still high-doubt the answers from the internet though, not that they are wrong, but whether they truly understand it like you do.
I mean, the decisive point that you made, which made me realize my mistake, was pointing out that the hurricane SUCKS IN the air, so the Coriolis force would affect these air being sucked in, causng them to deflect right — > counter-clockwise.
The thing with these posters (or parrots who just repeat whatever they were taught without deep thinking) is they totally neglected that crucial point. Without that crucial point, the hurricane as I imagined was just massive air bodies moving around the eye, which accoridng to the Coriolis effect would be clockwise. That was how I was wrong.
I need to visualise things myself. I was trying to find a good simple diagram on the net but didn’t find anything suitable.