- Anthony Lapinski <alapinski@pds.org>UnsubscribeTo:John Denker via Phys-lFri, Oct 22 at 11:20 AMIn the upcoming Earth/atmosphere topic, I'm trying to teach "basic"
information about the Coriolis effect in my high school astronomy class.
Basic. Book says hurricanes spin CCW in the northern hemisphere and CW in
the southern hemisphere. True, but why?
So I did some research about the way winds deflect when moving toward the
poles and toward the equator in both hemispheres as a result of the Earth
spinning eastward. Some of the information/diagrams were
confusing/contradictory - right, left, eastward, westward, etc. Did not
fully explain how the spin happens.
Is the hurricane rotation direction because the poles are at a higher
pressure than the equator? Or that hurricanes generally move away from the
equator in both hemispheres?
Anyone have a good source/reference/diagram/video of this topic?
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If your students are prepared to encounter lurid text like this:"the primary reasons that the South Atlantic Ocean gets few tropical cyclones are that the tropospheric (near surface to 200mb) vertical wind shear is much too strong and there is typically no inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) over the ocean (Gray 1968). "
Then they may be ready for material like this: https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd-faq/#tc-formation