The strongest wind in the mountains. The strongest hurricane in the world. Barrow Island, Australia

Wind in Antarctica

Antarctica is a unique continent, in some places where there has been no rain for two million years.

Thanks to this fact, the mainland can compete with the deserts for the title of the driest place on Earth, for example, in the Sahara desert, only up to 25 mm of precipitation falls per year. In general, the situation with precipitation in Antarctica is about the same as in the Sahara, but in Antarctica these places, where there is neither snow, nor ice, nor rain, make up only 2% of the entire continent.

Antarctica is covered with ice, of which there is so much that the mainland can rightly be called the wettest continent on Earth.

Winds up to 2 km/s detected on exoplanet

After all, all this ice is 70% of the reserves fresh water on our planet. And the winds here accelerate at such tremendous speeds that they can certainly be considered the fastest permanent winds on Earth. This is facilitated by the fact that most of the surface of Antarctica is a plain, and nothing prevents the wind.

Where do winds originate in Antarctica?

The strongest constant winds called katabatic, falling.

In Antarctica, they originate in the Dry Valleys region, arising due to unique natural conditions: the air freezing on the tops of the plateau becomes denser and heavier, after which, under the force of gravity, it rushes down the mountainside.

Unbelievable but true, katabatic winds can reach speeds of 320 km/h and evaporate all moisture in their path, even ice.

The most windy place in Antarctica is Commonwealth Bay, where a constantly blowing wind is officially registered, the speed of which reaches 322 km/h.

However, despite such wind strength, back in 1912, Douglas Mawson founded a research base in the bay.

Gust at 512 km/h

This is all true if we are talking about constantly operating winds on the Earth's surface, however, there are also temporary gusts of wind that significantly exceed katabatic winds both in strength and speed.

Typically, such gusts of wind accompany such natural phenomena as tornadoes (tornadoes).

The highest recorded wind speed was 512 km/h at a height of 30-60 m from the ground, this happened on May 3, 1999 near Bridge Creek in Oklahoma, USA. Several formed tornadoes destroyed everything in their path, according to the Fujita scale, they were assigned the F6 class (maximum rating).

Vladislav Pankratov, Samogo.Net

Most strong wind in the entire history of observations occurred on April 12, 1934 on Mount Washington, New Hampshire. Then, within a few minutes, drilling mud at a speed of 123 m/s.

IN recent decades, March 3, 1972, the strongest wind (93.6 m / s) at the weather station located in the western part of Greenland was the strongest.

Absolute records of mean monthly and mean annual wind speeds were recorded in 1913.

geographic records. Wind.

at Cape Denilson in Antarctica - 24.9 and 19.4 m / s.

in the southern and midwestern United States.

Maximum wind speed A tornado (approximately 512 km/h) was remotely measured using mobile Doppler radar on May 3, 1999 near Oklahoma City.

Most of the deaths are from Typhoon.

About 1,300 people died on September 13, 1906, when a typhoon was destroyed by 160 km/h winds in Hong Kong.

The most tragic consequences of the monsoons.

Monsun, who rushed to Thailand in 1983, claimed about 10,000 lives and caused 396 million damage.

dollars. After nearly 100,000 people contracted monsoon sickness and about 15,000 people had to be evacuated.

The highest reliable body of water was observed on 16 May 1898 at Eden, New South Wales, Australia. The height of the theodolite was 1528 m, and the diameter was 3 m.

Most of the victims are tornadoes.

A tornado hit the city of Chaturia, Bangladesh. About 1,300 people died, more than 50,000 were left homeless.

The greatest property damage caused by a tornado. The giant whirlwinds that hit Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio (USA) in April 1985 killed 271 people, injured thousands more and caused more than 400 million damage.

dollars.

I would appreciate it if you share the article on social networks:

geographic records. Wind. wikipedia
Search on this site:

Examples of the use of the word are regurgitated in the literature.

Before we reached this wall, we passed several moments of bright light, briefly inflammation blue snow and apses of what resembles a cathedral without an altar, but with skeletons that occupy the pews.

The language used on the ships, this amazing language of sailors, scenic, perfected, the language used by Jean Barthes, Duquesne, Suffren and Dyupere, the language merging with the whistling wind in the gear, with the roar of the horn, the noise of the boarding axis, with the pitching to speak, with the hurricane , damage, volleyball guns, is a real slang, a hero and a genius, who in front of the terrible slang of poverty is the same as a lion in front of a jackal.

All of these bulge taming mechanisms had an earthly backstory that was long overdue in test flight and deliberate disasters that accompanied peaceful and assertion frightened and surprised by the flickering cathode ray oscilloscope and large digital machine, forced to play this Astronautical tragedy, the rest are motionless and only warm his wall, light heating stove periods, he talked about the programmer's dynamic duty flurries a stream that corresponds to the centuries of astronautics.

As Tripoli, Benghazi, Cairo, Tel Aviv, Rome, London and Washington collapsed inflammation Colonel Bernstein and Admiral Mark Allen's messages appeared in the room, desperately scrambling services to help working professionals, I promised to come to the temple as soon as they unraveled the secret signals of the avalanche.

Where do blacks come from? inflammation, and the wind, rain and waves began.

Powerful winds - on which planets do they exist?

Relatively recently, planetary scientists have found a new "gas giant" - the cosmic body "HD189733b", which distinguished itself with the most powerful winds.

By the way, it is located in the constellation "The Fox", and the speed of wind gusts on it sometimes reaches a couple of kilometers per second. This is seven times the speed of sound, for example, and twenty times faster than Earth's most powerful wind. The British astrophysicists who made the discovery were very surprised by the properties of HD189733b.

"HD189733b" is called an exoplanet, despite the super-powerful winds. This is the first space object significantly distant from us, on which the wind speed could be calculated.

To do this, experts have compiled a "weather map" using computer modeling.

The strongest wind and the windiest place in the world

It turned out that the wind speed "HD189733b" equates to 5.4 thousand miles / hour, which is 8.6 thousand kilometers / hour. In addition to modeling, planetary scientists used data from the HARPS spectrometer, a modern high-tech apparatus operating at high frequencies. This device is mounted on a three-meter telescope.

The planet "HD189733b" is called not only "exo", but also "hot Jupiter", as it is " gas giant", which is located very close to its luminary.

The temperature on "HD189733b" reaches 1200⁰ Celsius. The silicate particles present in the atmosphere give the planet its bluish color.

There are several places that are desperately vying for the title of the windiest area on planet Earth. However, it turns out that nature is trying to keep some of its secrets, and the wind is not so easy to measure, and the title of the most windy place depends on the definition of "windy".

Barrow Island

Located northwest of the coast of Australia, this small island experienced strong winds. In 1996, April 10, meteorological station recorded the strongest gust of wind in history, the speed of which reached 408 km per hour. This gust of wind came on the wings of Tropical Cyclone Olivia.

Tropical cyclones form when warm, moist air rises from the surface of the seas and oceans. They are accompanied by heavy rainfall and storm-force winds. Tropical cyclones are capable of long time maintain its strength only over large bodies of water, such as the open seas and oceans. The islands are particularly affected by such weather phenomena. Such a cyclone in the northern hemisphere is called a typhoon, and over the waters of the Atlantic Ocean - a hurricane.

Despite the fact that Cyclone Olivia brought the strongest gust of wind, it is still not the strongest cyclone. Usually the power of a cyclone is determined by the continuous strength of the wind. According to meteorological data, the champion was Typhoon Nancy, whose continuous wind force in 1961 reached 146 km per hour. Nancy caused the deaths of 170 people in Japan.

Yet cyclones are not wind champions. Even more destructive gusts occur during tornadoes and tornadoes. Thus, one of the windiest places in the world is located in the very center of the United States.

Oklahoma

A tornado in Russian, often called a tornado, is an air column that connects a thundercloud to the ground. According to many meteorologists, tornadoes are the most powerful and destructive of all. atmospheric vortices and storms.

Such weather phenomenon, like tornadoes, can happen anywhere, but most often they appear in the United States. The southeastern states have even been given the title of "tornado alley". In 2011, the "alley" served as an arena for the formation of 207 separate tornadoes in a 24-hour period.

In 1999, on May 3, the highest tornado speed was recorded in Oklahoma, reaching 486 km per hour.

Despite high wind speeds in tornadoes, this weather phenomenon is usually relatively short-lived, but there is a place where you can encounter strong winds at any time of the year.

South ocean

This is the conventional name for the waters of the three oceans - Indian, Pacific and Atlantic, which wash the shores of Antarctica. Increasingly, among specialists, there is a division of the world ocean not into the usual four water bodies, but into five, when they determine a separate role for the Southern Ocean.

Any traveler or explorer who has circumnavigated the globe will tell you that the waters of the Southern Ocean are the most turbulent. Starting from 40 ° latitude, the winds become especially cruel and strong. Gusts are further enhanced by the fact that air flows are not interrupted by continents and large islands. Thus, the continuous force of the wind in the Southern Ocean can reach 160 km per hour.

Though this strength is enough to recognize South ocean one of the windiest places, a little south of the restless waters lies the continent, whose air currents earned it the title of the windiest 100 years ago.

Antarctica

The wind in Antarctica is unusual - it is called katabatic, or falling. Due to the shape of the continent, dense air currents descend over ice slopes which makes the wind not only strong, but also unusually cold.

The shape of the continent is very similar to a dome, the wind blows from the top towards the coastline with a slope to the left due to the rotation of the Earth around its axis. The strength of the wind gusts on the southernmost continent has been regularly measured since December 1913. The windiest hour in the history of Antarctica was July 6, 1913, when the force air currents reached a speed of 153 km per hour.

However, it is very difficult to measure the strength of the katabatic wind, especially in Antarctica, where the temperature never rises above zero. Firstly, strong air currents, due to their density, easily break equipment, and secondly, even if some measuring stations and poles remain intact, they often freeze.

Image copyright Robert Mora Alamy Stock Photo Image caption Trees bent by the constant winds on the Catlins coast of New Zealand's South Island

Among the contenders for the title of the windiest place on the planet are the state of Oklahoma in the USA, Antarctica, the Southern Ocean and a small island off the coast of Australia. But it all depends on the parameters by which this blowing is measured. The correspondent understood the problem of windiness.

Barrow Island, Australia

Image copyright Suzanne Long Alamy Stock Photo Image caption On April 10, 1996, a weather station on Barrow Island recorded wind gusts of up to 408 km/h.

On this small island, located off the northwest coast of Australia, it is sometimes quite drafty.

On April 10, 1996, an automatic weather station located there registered wind gusts of up to 408 kilometers per hour. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), these are the strongest wind gusts on record.

Typhoon Olivia produced the most powerful single wind gust, but did not become the most powerful tropical cyclone in history

This serious record was set with the help of tropical cyclone Olivia.

Tropical cyclones are rotating areas of storm winds. They occur when warm, moist air rises from the surface of the ocean and forms a low-pressure weather system.

The typhoon accelerates the trade winds, blowing towards the equator. The column of rising air swirls due to the so-called Coriolis effect, in which the rotation of the Earth deflects winds away from the equator.

Such weather systems are capable of generating hurricane-force winds. Particularly powerful cyclones are called on Far East and in South-East Asia typhoons, and in the North and South America- hurricanes.

Image copyright NASA Image caption Sometimes two typhoons can form at the same time, as seen in this image from space.

So, Typhoon Olivia produced the most powerful single gust of wind - which, however, does not make it the most powerful tropical cyclone in history. To do this, it is better to evaluate the storm by the parameter of sustainable wind speed.

Typhoon Nancy of 1961 appears to be the champion in this category, according to the WMO. It formed over Pacific Ocean and led to the death of 170 people when it hit the coast of Japan.

Sustained wind speeds of up to 346 kilometers per hour were reported during that typhoon - although meteorologists now suspect that this estimate may have been somewhat overestimated.

However, helical tornadoes can generate even stronger wind gusts.

This means that one of the most windy places on Earth is located exactly in the middle of the United States.

Oklahoma State, USA

Image copyright Reed Timmer SPL Image caption Most tornadoes occur in the southeastern states of the United States, nicknamed "Tornado Alley"

A tornado is a rotating vertical vortex that forms between the lower edge of thunderclouds and the earth's surface.

If instead of earth there is water below, then such a whirlwind is called a waterspout.

Tornadoes are "the most violent of all atmospheric storms," ​​according to the National Storm Laboratory, located in the city of Norman in US state Oklahoma.

Tornadoes can drive the wind to incredible strength, but they don't last long.

They can occur anywhere in the world, but there are more of them in the US than anywhere else - especially in the southeastern states, nicknamed "Tornado Alley".

In Oklahoma, WMO celebrated the most high speed winds for this type of vortex: 486 kilometers per hour. It happened on May 3, 1999 in the Bridge Creek area.

Although tornadoes can drive the wind to incredible levels, they don't last long.

But there are also places in the world where a powerful wind blows all year round.

South ocean

Image copyright Gavin Newman Alamy Stock Photo Image caption Quite an ordinary day in the Southern Ocean - stormy and shaking

As a result of uneven heating of the surface of our planet by the Sun, giant belts of prevailing winds are formed above it.

Trade winds blow steadily at 30 degrees north and south of the equator. At a latitude of 40° dominate westerly winds, and in the region of 60 ° polar eastern ones dominate.

If you ask any sailor who has undertaken a circumnavigation of the world, he will answer without hesitation that the strongest winds - and the most big waves- Found in the Southern Ocean.

These rugged southern latitudes have entered maritime folklore under the nicknames of the "Roaring Forties", "Furious Fifties" and "Shrill Sixties".

Unlike northern hemisphere, in the South, on the path of the prevailing westerly winds, there are almost no continents - therefore, the wind can accelerate without interference to speeds of over 150 kilometers per hour.

Antarctica

Image copyright fruchtzwergs world CC by 2.0 Image caption Downward or katabatic winds in Antarctica are a product of cold and form earth's surface

In Antarctica, katabatic, or downward, winds blow. They arise due to a combination of a cold climate and the peculiar shape of the polar continent.

"The constant cooling of the surface, especially during the Antarctic winter when the sun barely or never rises above the horizon, results in a thin layer of cold, dense air just above the surface," explains John King of the British Antarctic Research Centre, located in Cambridge.

"Antarctic has a domed shape, and therefore cold air moves from its higher center towards the coasts, - says the specialist. “As a result of the rotation of the Earth, this air does not move down in a straight line: along the way it deviates to the left.”

Image copyright Atomic Alamy Stock Photo Image caption Blizzard at Cape Denison - little has changed here since 1912

From February 1912 to December 1913, scientists measured the wind speed at Cape Denison in the Commonwealth Sea in the east of Antarctica. And to this day it is believed that of all the weather stations located at sea level, this one is located in the most blown place.

On July 6, 1913, a record for the average wind force per hour was recorded at this station: it amounted to 153 km / h.

According to the Beaufort scale widely used to estimate wind speed, the weather at Cape Denison is, on average, regarded as stormy.

Sir Douglas Mawson, who led the expedition to Cape Denison, wrote: "The climate is essentially a year-round blizzard and blizzard: hurricane wind roars for weeks, interrupted only occasionally for a couple of hours.

The combination of strong winds and sub-zero temperatures makes it difficult to measure the strength of katabatic winds.

Image copyright Design Pics Inc Alamy Stock Photo Image caption Katabatic winds of Antarctica - the native element for Cape doves

Firstly, if the storm has broken out in earnest, it can demolish the measuring equipment and the masts on which it is attached.

But even when the storm subsides, common types of cup or vane anemometers (wind instruments) often freeze and become covered in ice.

"You can use ultrasonic anemometers that have no moving parts and can be heated to avoid icing," says King. "But they don't work very well in high winds with snow."

In general, measuring wind speed in Antarctica is not at all easy.

The fastest wind in the world was registered by a commission of experts on April 10, 1996. A gust of wind hit its record high on Barrow Island, Australia. At this time Cyclone Olivia passed here.

The wind speed on the island reached 408 kilometers per hour. For comparison, the average wind speed in the world reaches 15 kilometers per hour.

Until then, the most fast wind in the world was considered a stream that was caught in New Hampshire on Mount Washington. This place is still considered one of the most hostile on the planet today. Before it was recorded in 1996 new record, the American wind in New Hampshire was considered the most powerful current for about 70 years.

The wind speed at the top of Mount Washington reached 372 kilometers per hour.

Despite these anomalies of the planet, a general weakening of winds around the world is recorded today. The researchers analyzed the performance of 800 weather stations over the past 3 decades. It turned out that today the wind speed indicators have decreased by 15%. That is, if earlier air flows went at a speed of 17 km/h, today it is already 14 km/h.

What is the reason? Scientists believe that one of the main reasons for such indicators is the restoration of forests due to the acute environmental situation. But no one discounts global warming.

What threatens? But the consequences of such changes can be negative for a person. For example, researchers have suggested that slowing wind currents could lead to air pollution, as well as a sharp reduction in the spread of seeds on the ground. Not to mention that wind farms will now generate significantly less energy. The strangest clouds have also appeared in the world.

Supported by: Find out if the pole reversal will happen in 2012 and what it threatens humanity.