Thanks to the Coriolis Effect’s impact on air and water, the movement happens in a curved direction; the north goes to the right and the south goes to the left. This is why hurricanes rotate counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and cyclones in the southern hemisphere rotate clockwise.

Hurricanes area essentially areas of low pressure. Air always likes to travel from high to low pressure, so it will move toward the storm. As the air moves to the storm, in the northern hemisphere, it will get turned to the right. This then creates a spinning motion that is counter clockwise.

In fact, tropical cyclones — the general name for the storms called typhoons, hurricanes or cyclones in different parts of the world — always spin counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, and spin in the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere.

Theoretically, a hurricane can cross the equator. Counter-clockwise hurricane winds in the Northern Hemisphere, a result of the Coriolis force (an apparent deflective force driven by the Earth’s spin that gives storms the rotation needed for development) would blow clockwise south of the equator.

Australian Toilets Don’t Flush Backwards Because of the Coriolis Effect. The real cause of “backwards”-flushing toilets is just that the water jets point in the opposite direction.

It took nearly an hour-and-a-half to drain, and sure enough the water went anticlockwise each time. Three years later, a group at the University of Sydney repeated the experiment, and as long as the water was allowed to stand for at least 18 hours, it always went down the plughole in a clockwise direction.

Because there is no turning of the surface of the Earth (sense of rotation) underneath a horizontally and freely moving object at the equator, there is no curving of the object’s path as measured relative to Earth’s surface. The object’s path is straight, that is, there is no Coriolis effect.

The Coriolis force is responsible for deflecting winds towards the right in the northern hemisphere and towards the left in the southern hemisphere. Since it impacts the wind direction, ocean currents, lack of coriolis force would have enabled them to move in one direction, impacting the overall climatic conditions.

equator

Because the Earth rotates on its axis, circulating air is deflected toward the right in the Northern Hemisphere and toward the left in the Southern Hemisphere. This deflection is called the Coriolis effect.

The direction of the drift is the same as the barrel twist rotation, i.e. in your typical right-handed rifle it is in the right hand direction. Spin drift is caused by aerodynamics forcing the bullet tip to turn slightly in the direction of rotation as the bullet tip follows its curved flight path.

Rifling refers to the spiral grooves that are cut into the internal surface of a gun barrel. Rifling helps impart a spinning motion to a bullet when it’s fired. A spinning bullet is much more stable in its trajectory, and is therefore more accurate than a bullet that doesn’t spin.

A bullet tumbles because it has lost stability. Bullets will also tumble in flight if they are not spun at the right speed. A light bullet can generally use a lower spin rate than a heavier bullet. Consequently, a heavy bullet rotating too slowly will lose stability in flight and veer in a spiral.

around 500-600 yards

The force of gravity acting on the bullet sends it slightly to the right or left of the original trajectory. The direction of the drift corresponds to the direction of the barrel’s twist. The impact of spin drift can be more than eight inches for a 1,000-yard distance.