What causes winds to deviate from straight-line paths?
1 Answer
There are local effects and also the Coriolis effect.
Explanation:
Local effects are caused by geography. Things like mountain ranges, valleys and shorelines will cause effects like funneling and cornering. Some of these effects are easy to explain and some are quite complex. If you need an explanation of these please let me know.
The Coriolis effect is a force-like effect that deflects the wind due to the rotation of the Earth. It is like drawing a straight line on a spinning ball. If you stop the ball after you draw the line, the line will be curved even though you drew it straight. This is how the Coriolis works.
Another way of thinking about it is, air moves from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure, but due to the rotation of the Earth the area of low pressure is not stationary so the direction the wind moves changes as well.
