This is probably an easy question for you guys to answer, but I’ve always been wondering: Why does the wind usually die down at night? Unless there is a storm (winter storm, thunderstorm, etc.), the winds usually die down to 1 or 2 mph at night. I was just wondering about it and decided to post it. Thanks.
if you live near the coast, it actualy does not (but will for a while a little around sunset)
the reason is a layer of colder air forms near the ground surface,which is not moving as fast as the general wind flow above
during the day that colder air is warmed up, its mixed with the air above, and the wind picks up again
?
Cyclone
i.e a oneshore general wind flow will not die down much at nightime
thats happens here on the coast
but it does die down inland, becuase of the inversion layer that is setup, as the land radiates shortwave heat to space
Brian, i changed the subject line, in my message
Cyclone
Okay, I think I get it now.
Thanks for the explaination.
unless someone said it. Heating of the atmosphere tends to settle down a bit.
I was going to say 8O something like the politicians go to bed about that time, but I thought better and didn’t, did I? :roll:
[quote author=aardvark link=topic=9171.msg65469#msg65469 date=1116774894]
I was going to say
Why does the wind die down at night?
Well, eons ago, when I was but a trusting lad of 5 or 6, I ask this of my grandfather.
He explained it patiently to me. “see Kenny, the wind needs the sun light to see where to blow. When there’s no sun light, it can’t see what it’s supposed to blow at, so it stops until the sun comes up the next morning”.
I was a trusting soul. It wasn’t until I was almost a teen that i realized my g’pa was kidding me…
Yes, I’m still a little on the naive side, 50 plus years later…
Ken
(in windy South San Francisco)
how about this question ?
Why does the temperature drop suddenly just before sunrise ?
Cyclone
actualy the coldest part of a cold night can be up to 20 minutes or so after sunrise, becuase a weak winter sun coming up into the sky slowly is not putting enough heat into the system to counteract that which is being lost
an aside,
often though, i notice, on coast areas, the wind does drop a bit at sunset…not sure of that one
The temp dropping just before sunrise?
Hmm. Nature’s way of trying to stop your neighbor from stealing your paper?
My guess would be along the lines of … with no sun to heat things, the longer the sun ain’t shining, the cooler it’ll get, and thereore, just before dawn, say 8 hours after sunset, or within an hour of sunrise, radiant heat is about depleted from earth, and it is colder… Sort of an unscientific stab at it… someone please post the scientifically accepted reason… Enquiring minds want to know!
Ken
My guess would be along the lines of ....
From what I remember of my pilots license Met course that’s right on the button.
Ask a scientist at the US dept of energy http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/wea00/wea00042.htm agrees (sort of) with cyclone that there is a drop in addition to the ongoing cooling. Can’t say that I have noticed it.
[quote]Question -
that guy then must be a moon can be used to predict the weather believer too?
During the day the sun heats the land faster than it heats the ocean, because the land absorbs more of the sun’s energy.
As the land heats up so does the air above it, the heated air rises, drawing in a sea breeze from the ocean.
At night the reverse happens as the land cools quicker than the sea.
A stonger wind from an active weather system will of course override the above effects.
Thanks for all of the explanations guys!
I’m pretty sure that I understand why the wind usually dies down at night and why the temperature drops a few degrees before sunset :lol:.
All of the explanations were great and some of them even confused me 8O (just a little bit :lol:).
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