I hate Coriolis Force

[watervole]

When a perfectly self-respecting wind blows north, it gets deflected eastwards (it's all due to the Earth's rotation and the fact that the area it is coming from is rotating faster than the area it is going to).

Thus, winds in the northern hemisphere blow clockwise round areas of high pressure and anti-clockwise around areas of low pressure.

Now, an area of low pressure is cyclonic and an area of high pressure is referred to as an anti-cyclone.

In nothern hemisphere, the wind blows clockwise round anti-cyclones and in the southern hemisphere, the wind blows anti-clockwise round anti-cyclones (because Coriolis force is operating in the other direction).

Is your brain hurting yet? (It's all the different 'antis' that do it to me.)

And I confess to not understanding at all why winds in the northern hemisphere that are blowing west-east are still deflected to the right. (I think I understood this once about 26 years ago when I struggled with it for a day or two with a friend, but the short OU course I'm doing now is too basic to cover that particular bit and in any case I'm not sure if I could cope with the explanation or not.)

Anyone think they can explain it?

Comments

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Any answer that involves the words 'wants' or 'tries to' is disqualified on the grounds that air masses are not sentient. (You can get simplified analogies that way, but they're very limited and can't prove anything)

[alex-holden.livejournal.com]

Yep, I would phrase it differently under exam conditions :)