Storm track

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the magazine, see Storm Track.

Storm tracks are the relatively narrow zones in the Atlantic and Pacific along which most Atlantic or Pacific extratropical cyclones travel.

The storm tracks begin in the westernmost parts of Atlantic and Pacific, where the large temperature contrasts between land and sea cause cyclones to form, particularly in winter. Surface friction cause these cyclones to quickly fill up and decay as soon as they reach land at the eastern end of the basins, accounting for the easternmost edges of the storm tracks.

Another example of a storm track is the circumpolar storm track in the Antarctic, however land-sea contrasts play no role in its formation.

Given a grid point field of geopotential height, storm tracks can be visualized by contouring its average standard deviation, after the data has been band-pass filtered.

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