This question has been asked, but people say it doesn’t and “the calm before the storm” is just a figure of speech.
I live in a little town thats known by locals for its never-ending gusty winds. Winds that *will* tear up anything not solid and/or bolted to the ground. Usually in the summer, right before we are to get a thunderstorm, the wind stops. Its almost creepy outside for the lack of any wind whatsoever. Then, few hours will pass and we get hit with gusts so strong that they will knock you off balance, which brings in the storm.
What causes this stillness in the air?
In: Earth Science
To form and thrive, storms need warm, moist air that they suck in from their surrounding environment. This warm, humid air rises from the surface, cooling and condensing into water droplets which in turn become clouds. The rising warm air actually creates a partial vacuum with sucks colder, drier air from higher in the atmosphere towards the ground. This actually helps to push the rain towards the surface. With the more air being sucked in from all around the storms, the air moving away from the storm actually gets pulled back towards the storm creating calm ahead of it.
[source](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wave3.com/2019/06/07/behind-forecast-true-calm-before-storm/%3FoutputType%3Damp)
It doesn’t always happen but it is absolutely a real thing.
There is a prevailing weather pattern for the day, typically with a wind from the south. A storm however creates it’s own local weather pattern. When the prevailing wind disappears it means you have come under the influence of the thunderstorm.
Generally you first enter the inflow, which has hardly any effect at the surface. This results in the calm wind. For strong storms, this will continue right up until you pass into the outflow portion of the storm, which generally has very strong winds.
Storms often form along a cold front. This has warm wind moving perpendicular to cold wind, and right on that line is where the storm forms. As those winds pass over it may feel calm between them.
[removed]
Suppose a strong storm is sucking in air at 20 mph at ground level. Now suppose it is also moving towards you at 20 mph. The two motions cancel each other out so the air in front of the storm is mostly calm, but it is an unsettled calm where the breeze shifts lightly and eerily back and forth as the storm approaches and can blow randomly from all different directions when the air isn’t still. It feels strange and isn’t the same as a regular calm day with no wind. That is the “calm before the storm.”
I recently moved to place thats windy, so it prompted me to look more into wind and what causes it.
Wind is a sucking action, not a blowing action. As a kid, you imagine a giant fan blowing air to make the wind. Warm air rises, and creates low pressure under it, so higher pressure air is sucked into the space below. Think when a door opens on a spacecraft in a science fiction movie. The greater the pressure difference, the higher the wind speed.
Storms are low pressure systems, so that in turn means air is rushing towards it, generally out of your specific area, just before the storm hits, as opposed to air rushing through your area.
Latest Answers