While prevailing weather systems tend to travel W to E, tropical storms that form over the Atlantic travel West before turning to the North, often only after entering the Gulf of Mexico. Thanks Helene 🤬. Why?
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The jet stream moves from west to east over North America. Sometimes it has a big curve in it, which allowed Hurricane Helene to wander up into the Tennessee valley. It doesn’t reach as far south as the Gulf of Mexico, where the air mass is mostly moving north away from the equatorial heat.
tropical storms in the atlantic are pushed westward by trade winds near the equator. as they move north, they encounter the westerlies, which steer them northeast. the gulf of mexico’s warm waters and land masses also influence their path, causing them to curve. this pattern is known as the “recurvature” of tropical cyclones.
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