What causes wind?

May 16, 09:47 PM

We all know the effects that wind has on us personally. It can make a hot day a little more bearable, a cold day more miserable, and a golf ball slice even further! But WHY does the wind blow? Well, the earth is covered with horizontal pressure differences called low and high atmospheric pressures. These differences in pressure is primarily created by the uneven heating of the earth’s surface by the sun. Since the earth’s surface is made of very different types of land and water, it absorbs the sun’s energy at different rates. The difference between these two pressure systems create the movement of air (wind) and this created wind moves from high to low pressure. Because of the earth’s rotation, the winds are deflected toward the right in the Northern Hemisphere (left in the Southern Hemisphere). This deflection causes the winds to blow clockwise and outward from the center of highs, and counterclockwise and inward toward the center of the low.

Meteorologists use surface maps to see the locations of high and low pressure systems over the country. Between the pressures, isobars are drawn that represent lines of equal pressure. These isobars are labeled with their pressure value in millibars (mb). The closer these lines are together, the stronger the wind.

So on a basic level, that is how wind is created on earth. Now here’s an interesting fact that I wouldn’t be so keen on experiencing – the highest wind speed ever recorded on the surface of the earth was 231 mph on April 12, 1934, atop Mt. Washington in New Hampshire! The high-elevation weather station experienced the winds of an extremely strong jet stream that had descended unusually low in the atmosphere. Can you imagine how far a golf ball would slice with that wind?