Re: pinhole coriolis on the equator

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From: Paul Doherty (pauld@exploratorium.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 11 2000 - 18:12:48 PST 

Message-Id: <l0311070eb4a1929ea4f1@[192.174.2.173]>
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 18:12:48 -0800
From: Paul Doherty <pauld@exploratorium.edu>
Subject: Re: pinhole coriolis on the equator

Hi Pinholers

There are no hurricanes within 10 degrees of the equator.
North of the equator the surface winds spiral counterclockwise, south of
the equator they spiral clockwise. Both Due to the cotiolis effect. At the
equator they do not spiral at all.

At scales smaller than 10 miles across the coriolis effect becomes small
compared to other random influences so that even tornados spin both ways in
the northern hemisphere. Water going down drains also spins clockwise and
counterclockwise due to imperfections in the drains. The coriolis effect is
there, it was observed by students at MIT (in the 60's when Paul D was
there), but we had to build a perfect drain to see it! No real drain
spirals due to the coriolis effect.

Paul D

Paul "But it is more complicated than that!" Doherty,
Senior Staff Scientist, The Exploratorium.
pauld@exploratorium.edu, www.exo.net/~pauld

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