How Do Jet Streams Affect Weather? The fast-moving air currents in a jet stream can transport weather systems across the United States, affecting temperature and precipitation. However, if a weather system is far away from a jet stream, it might stay in one place, causing heat waves or floods.

Q. What will most likely result when the jet stream moves south of North Carolina? North Carolina will experience tropical weather conditions. North Carolina will experience hot, dry weather.

How is North Carolina affected when the jet stream is above the state? NC will have warmer weather.

Jet streams are always changing: moving to higher or lower altitudes, breaking up, and shifting in flow, depending on the season and other variables, such as energy coming from the sun. Air north of a jet stream is typically colder, while air to the south is usually warmer.

Where did the terminology jet stream come from? Carl-Gustaf Rossby is considered the key meteorologist in the discovery of the jet stream, but in 1939 a German meteorologist named Seilkopf used the German word “strahlstromung,” which means jet stream, to describe these strong winds.

Wiley Post

What causes the Gulf Stream? The Gulf Stream is caused by a large system of circular currents and powerful winds, called an oceanic gyre. As the warm water comes in, colder, denser water sinks and begins moving south—eventually flowing along the bottom of the ocean all the way to Antarctica.

The Gulf Stream is extremely important to the global climate because it provides moderating temperatures on neighboring land areas of the east coast of North America, the coasts of Western Europe and northwestern Africa, and other coastal areas along its path.

New Perspectives on Deep-water Sandstones The Gulf Stream proper is a western-intensified current, largely driven by wind stress (Wunsch, 2002). The current velocity is fastest near the surface, with a maximum velocity of about 250 cm s−1 (9 km hr−1), confined to the upper 200 m of the water column.

Gulf Stream Velocity. The Gulf Stream is the fastest ocean current in the world with peak velocities near 2m/s. Shown to the left are velocity profiles across the Gulf Stream at the Straits of Florida and Cape Hatteras.

Gulf Stream

Warm ocean currents originate near the equator and move towards the poles or higher latitudes while cold currents originate near the poles or higher latitudes and move towards the tropics or lower latitudes. They can flow for thousands of miles and are found in all the major oceans of the world.

North Atlantic Current