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27-551: Westbound is an adjective meaning "movement towards the west ". It may refer to: Westbound (1924 film) , starring J. B. Warner and Molly Malone Westbound (film) , a 1959 American western film "Westbound" (song) , a 2007 unreleased song by Lana Del Rey (under the pseudonym May Jailer) "Westbound" ( The Zeta Project episode) Westbound Records , Detroit-based record label founded in 1970 See also [ edit ] Southbound (disambiguation) Topics referred to by

54-522: A compass for navigation (in a place where magnetic north is the same direction as true north) one needs to set a bearing or azimuth of 270°. West is the direction opposite that of the Earth 's rotation on its axis, and is therefore the general direction towards which the Sun appears to constantly progress and eventually set. This is not true on the planet Venus , which rotates in the opposite direction from

81-457: Is absent, because land amplifies the flow pattern, making the current more north–south oriented, slowing the westerlies. The strongest westerly winds in the middle latitudes can come in the roaring forties , between 40 and 50 degrees south latitude. The westerlies play an important role in carrying the warm, equatorial waters and winds to the western coasts of continents, especially in the southern hemisphere because of its vast oceanic expanse. If

108-646: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages West The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance languages ( ouest in French, oest in Catalan, ovest in Italian, oeste in Spanish and Portuguese). As in other languages, the word formation stems from the fact that west is the direction of the setting sun in the evening: 'west' derives from

135-480: Is negative and pressures are higher over the poles, the flow is more meridional, blowing from the direction of the pole towards the Equator , which brings cold air into the mid-latitudes. Throughout the year, the westerlies vary in strength with the polar cyclone . As the cyclone reaches its maximum intensity in winter , the westerlies increase in strength. As the cyclone reaches its weakest intensity in summer ,

162-664: The Earth were tidally locked to the Sun, solar heating would cause winds across the mid-latitudes to blow in a poleward direction, away from the subtropical ridge. However, the Coriolis effect caused by the rotation of Earth tends to deflect poleward winds eastward from north (to the right) in the Northern Hemisphere and eastward from south (to the left) in the Southern Hemisphere. This is why winds across

189-822: The Western Roman Empire and the Western Christianity . During the Cold War "the West" was often used to refer to the NATO camp as opposed to the Warsaw Pact and non-aligned nations . The expression survives, with an increasingly ambiguous meaning. In Chinese Buddhism , the West represents movement toward the Buddha or enlightenment (see Journey to the West ). The ancient Aztecs believed that

216-579: The high-pressure area caused by a system traversing the Westerlies, its general track around the high-pressure area is deflected significantly by winds moving towards the general low-pressure area to its north. When the cyclone track becomes strongly poleward with an easterly component, the cyclone has begun recurvature, entering the Westerlies. A typhoon moving through the Pacific Ocean towards Asia, for example, will recurve offshore of Japan to

243-754: The middle latitudes (i.e. between 35 and 65 degrees latitude ) is from the west, known as the westerlies . The phrase "the West" is often spoken in reference to the Western world , which includes the European Union (also the EFTA countries), the United Kingdom, the Americas, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and (in part) South Africa. The concept of the Western part of the earth has its roots in

270-470: The Earth ( retrograde rotation ). To an observer on the surface of Venus, the Sun would rise in the west and set in the east although Venus's opaque clouds prevent observing the Sun from the planet's surface. In a map with north at the top, west is on the left. Moving continuously west is following a circle of latitude . Due to the direction of the Earth's rotation, the prevailing wind in many places in

297-487: The Indo-European root *wes reduced from *wes-pero 'evening, night', cognate with Ancient Greek ἕσπερος hesperos 'evening; evening star; western' and Latin vesper 'evening; west'. Examples of the same formation in other languages include Latin occidens 'west' from occidō 'to go down, to set' and Hebrew מַעֲרָב (maarav) 'west' from עֶרֶב (erev) 'evening'. West is sometimes abbreviated as W . To go west using

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324-465: The Northern Hemisphere are weaker than those in the Southern Hemisphere due to the differences in strength between the westerlies of each hemisphere. The process of western intensification causes currents on the western boundary of an ocean basin to be stronger than those on the eastern boundary of an ocean. These western ocean currents transport warm, tropical water polewards toward the polar regions . Ships crossing both oceans have taken advantage of

351-470: The Northern Hemisphere tend to blow from the southwest, but they tend to be from the northwest in the Southern Hemisphere. When pressures are lower over the poles, the strength of the westerlies increases, which has the effect of warming the mid-latitudes. This occurs when the Arctic oscillation is positive, and during winter low pressure near the poles is stronger than it would be during the summer. When it

378-550: The Southern hemisphere, because of the stormy and cloudy conditions, it is usual to refer to the westerlies as the roaring forties, furious fifties, or shrieking sixties according to the varying degrees of latitude. Due to persistent winds from west to east on the poleward sides of the subtropical ridges located in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, ocean currents are driven in a similar manner in both hemispheres. The currents in

405-463: The West was the realm of the great goddess of water , mist, and maize . In Ancient Egypt , the West was considered to be the portal to the netherworld , and is the cardinal direction regarded in connection with death , though not always with a negative connotation. Ancient Egyptians also believed that the Goddess Amunet was a personification of the West. The Celts believed that beyond

432-464: The Westerlies weaken. An example of the impact of the westerlies is when dust plumes, originating in the Gobi Desert combine with pollutants and spread large distances downwind, or eastward, into North America . The westerlies can be particularly strong, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, where there is less land in the middle to cause the progression of west to east winds to slow down. In

459-724: The development of strong cyclones of all types at the base of the Westerlies, both within the atmosphere and within the ocean . The Kuroshio ( Japanese for "Black Tide") is a strong western boundary current in the western north Pacific Ocean , similar to the Gulf Stream, which has also contributed to the depth of ocean storms in that region. An extratropical cyclone is a synoptic scale low-pressure weather system that has neither tropical nor polar characteristics, being connected with fronts and horizontal gradients in temperature and dew point otherwise known as "baroclinic zones". The descriptor "extratropical" refers to

486-432: The fact that this type of cyclone generally occurs outside of the tropics, in the middle latitudes of the planet, where the Westerlies steer the system generally from west to east. These systems may also be described as "mid-latitude cyclones" due to their area of formation, or "post-tropical cyclones" where extratropical transition has occurred, and are often described as "depressions" or "lows" by weather forecasters and

513-419: The general public. These are the everyday phenomena which along with anticyclones , drive the weather over much of the Earth. Although extratropical cyclones are almost always classified as baroclinic since they form along zones of temperature and dewpoint gradient, they can sometimes become barotropic late in their life cycle when the temperature distribution around the cyclone becomes fairly uniform along

540-436: The north, and then to the northeast, if the typhoon encounters southwesterly winds (blowing northeastward) around a low-pressure system passing over China or Siberia . Many tropical cyclones are eventually forced toward the northeast by extratropical cyclones in this manner, which move from west to east to the north of the subtropical ridge. An example of a tropical cyclone in recurvature was Typhoon Ioke in 2006, which took

567-690: The ocean currents for centuries. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), or the West Wind Drift, is an ocean current that flows from west to east around Antarctica . The ACC is the dominant circulation feature of the Southern Ocean and, at approximately 125 Sverdrups , the largest ocean current. In the northern hemisphere, the Gulf Stream , part of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre , has led to

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594-401: The radius from the center of low pressure. An extratropical cyclone can transform into a subtropical storm, and from there into a tropical cyclone, if it dwells over warm waters and develops central convection, which warms its core and causes temperature and dewpoint gradients near their centers to fade. When a tropical cyclone crosses the subtropical ridge axis, normally through a break in

621-414: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Westbound . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Westbound&oldid=969056274 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

648-634: The southwest in the Northern Hemisphere and from the northwest in the Southern Hemisphere . The westerlies are strongest in the winter hemisphere and times when the pressure is lower over the poles, while they are weakest in the summer hemisphere and when pressures are higher over the poles. The westerlies are particularly strong, especially in the Southern Hemisphere (called also 'Brave West winds' at striking Chile , Argentina , Tasmania and New Zealand ), in areas where land

675-659: The west as in respect to Mecca , Mecca is in the West-ward direction. In American literature (e.g., in The Great Gatsby ) moving West has sometimes symbolized gaining freedom , perhaps as an association with the settling of the Wild West (see also the American frontier and Manifest Destiny ). Westerlies The westerlies , anti-trades , or prevailing westerlies , are prevailing winds from

702-426: The west toward the east in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude . They originate from the high-pressure areas in the horse latitudes (about 30 degrees) and trend towards the poles and steer extratropical cyclones in this general manner. Tropical cyclones which cross the subtropical ridge axis into the westerlies recurve due to the increased westerly flow. The winds are predominantly from

729-1025: The western sea off the edges of all maps lay the Otherworld , or Afterlife. In Judaism , west is seen to be toward the Shekinah (presence) of God, as in Jewish history the Tabernacle and subsequent Jerusalem Temple faced east, with God's Presence in the Holy of Holies up the steps to the west. According to the Bible , the Israelites crossed the Jordan River westward into the Promised Land . In Islam , while in India, people pray facing towards

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