Posted by John Lambert on May 07, 2009 at 21:26:44 user John.
In Reply to: Re: Daylight saving time posted by Peter Ceresole on May 07, 2009 at 05:29:49:
But if the prevailing winds in the Pacific were mainly westerlies, they would pull the surface water towards the coast of South America. You can also see from the map you mentioned that the winds blow from the west (hence westerlies) to the coast of North America as well. About 90 percent of our weather comes from the southwest and consists of relatively warm moist wind having blown over the Pacific for thousands of miles. Our weather patterns tend to last for several days or weeks because of the slow-moving masses of air from that vast ocean to our west. Our brief spells of hot weather (90 degrees plus) and cold weather come from winds blowing from the northeast, bringing extreme temperatures from the interior of B.C. In have noticed that in the U.K. the weather can change a few times in the course of a single day, not in our part of the world, alas. I have heard it said that the reason why people from western Europe have led the world in invention and enterprise (debatable?) is that the constant change of the weather influenced their restless nature. Hope this isn't straying too far from the AR canon.