Vindauga

Hi ho Morocco!

Tropical Storm Delta, yes Delta, is heading straight for Morocco mere days before the end of the official hurricane season. It is madness I tell you. A storm this late in the season is strange but a storm heading in the opposite direction from where they usually come from is down right bizarre. Hurricanes often form because of warm dry air rolling off the continent of Africa, where the warm dry air, over warm water causes evaporation from the sea, which creates updraft and draws in more air from the surrounding area. That air, driven by the coriolis effect, begins to spin, which, if the conditions are right, eventually creates a hurricane.

But that all usually happens from East to West. The reason the hurricane season ends when it does is because conditions are not often favorable for hurricane formation outside of that time zone. A big junk of that is because the prevailing winds in the area that has the right water temperatures is from East to West, which allows that air to come off of Africa, not West to East, which requires that air to come off North or South America. The air coming off the America’s is usually too moist to accomodate the right kind of evaporation necessary to get this process rolling. There is nowhere that I know of in the world where hurricanes regularly form heading to the East. They do often turn East when they get far enough North.

In case anyone cares, Casablanca’s latitude is about parallel with Starkville’s. Gibralter is about on par with Virginia. The French riviera is about level with New York. Its amazing what a body of water will do for your weather.