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Re: [Phys-l] Coriolis effect puzzlement

If the low pressure center is located at the north pole, each parcel of air that moves towards the pole has a small amount of 'excess' eastward velocity. (i.e. the radius from it came was moving eastward slightly faster than it's current radius.) As it's distance from the pole decreases this excess eastward velocity is what we see as the counterclockwise rotation.

Sliding the Low to lower latitudes throws in some complicating trig but keeps the physics the same.


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At 5:50 AM -0500 12/2/11, Bob Sciamanda wrote:

There is lacking a mechanism for STARTING THE SPIN ABOUT THE LOW PRESSURE
CENTER. In the rotating frame this is provided by the Coriolis effect.
What is the dynamical mechanism as viewed from an inertial frame?