Thursday, March 10, 2016

Global and Local Winds in Australia

The winds in Australia is very similar to the winds found in the state of Hawaii. The latitude and longitude of 35.3080ºS, 149.1245ºE. Unlike the United States, Australia is located in the Southern Hemisphere. Being in the Southern Hemisphere, the seasons are opposite lol. Australia is located in the Hadley Cell. Australia being in the Souther Hemisphere, its planetary wind belt is is the Mid-Latitude Westerlies. The wind in Australia blows from West to East, just like the rest of the world. No place on the East coast of Australia have prevailing wind, as they change with pressure systems. Australia is dominate by a belt of the high pressure system around the earth. Australia is not located near any special location. Though it is in the subtropical highs.

Australia is the driest continent on Earth. The geological features that influence the climate of Australia most strongly is the absence of sufficiently high mountain ranges west of the Great Dividing Range running north-south near the coast of the continent. Australia is dominated by the belt of high pressure around the Earth, composed of series of high pressure systems that move from west to east near the latitude of 30ºS. In summer, these high pressure systems cover the southern parts of the continent and by winter, they have moved north to the central regions. For this being, Australia experiences mostly clear skies, the descending air being dry. Westerly winds is located immediately to the south of the high pressure zone. Fronts and depressions in this band of westerly winds are areas where the air pressures are locally lower. The southeast trade winds occur immediately to the north of the high pressure belt. These winds converge with the northeast trades of the Northern Hemisphere to form the inter-tropical convergence zone, a belt where the rising warm air containing large amounts of moisture. During the summer, there is a low pressure that remains continuously over northern Australia, the monsoon season that is hot and wet.

The absence of mountains in Australia causes the winds to blow the country's moisture away. The five types of breezes associated with mountains are country breeze, desert winds, chinook winds, katabatic winds and Santa Ana winds. The wind or breeze that Australia experiences most is the country winds. This is due to the lack of mountains. Also happens but very rarely is the desert winds. This is because there are many deserts in Australia but rarely create haboobs. There are 8 coastlines in Australia. The two breezes that are associated with coastlines are sea breeze and land breeze. Australia experiences sea breezes on the East side of the country.

1 comment:

  1. Australia is in a similar geographical location to the Philippines, but the continent is located just further south. Australia is extremely interesting because you note areas that experience high pressure and then other areas that experience low pressure. Because the continent is so large, it makes sense that there could be areas that are distinctly different from one another. In the Philippines, though, since the land mass is much smaller and takes up less surface area, the islands only experience low pressure as opposed to both high and low pressure. In comparison to the amount of mountains the land contains to the amount of land mass in general, the Philippines is a lot more mountainous than Australia. The islands would never experience desert or haboobs because there are no deserts in the Philippines. Sea breezes are also much more prevalent in the Philippines because there are many islands that make up the country, rather than the largest island in the world (Australia). Overall, there are more differences than similarities between the two countries when it comes to the global and local winds in those countries.

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