What makes a Storm Travel?

[2 Seam Fastball]

Anyone know why storms travel West to east and or south to north and or North west to south east. And none from East to West, and North to South?

[Colin]

I'm a very young amateur, but I think it has to do something with the upper level winds and which direction they are going...mostly west to east/north to south.

[ColdFront77]

Weather systems are steered by the jet stream, which is generally west to east and south to north across the United States (in the northern hemisphere).

Sometimes, low pressure systems get strong enough that the counter-clockwise circulation around them creates a northwest or westerly movement to the precipitation, like that in a hurricane or blizzard.

[polarbear]

It depends on what you're refering to.

The general motion of large scale weather systems is dictated by the movement of the mid and upper level wind patterns (namely the jet streams). These systems mostly travel from the west to the east in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, well north and south of the equator. Movement is generally east to west in the Tropics (around 30°S to 30°N). This overall motion is created by the Hadley Cells, which are basically large scale circulations that rotate Clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and Counter Clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. Sometimes large scale high and low pressure systems will travel 'backwards', which is called "retrogression".

Areas of precipitation and thunderstorms are dictated by the circulations of high and low pressure systems. Usually this is mid and upper level winds. Things can get complicated when we talk about thunderstorms, namely Mesoscale Convective Systems (large clusters of thunderstorms). That's another story.

Hope this helps.

[ColdFront77]

Thank you for your explanation, polarbear. I have heard of "Hadley Cells" before.

My answer isn't much of base if at all.

[JetMaxx]

If you mean thunderstorms....watch the winds aloft around 10,000'...also known as 700 mb.

If the 700 mb winds are forecast to be from 240° @ 45 kts....expect thunderstorm cells to race NE at 50-55 mph...like we see in Georgia in March and April.

[PTrackerLA]

During the summer in south Louisiana it seems that storms come from all directions, whereas in the winter months you never see storms coming from the east.

[ColdFront77]

PTracker, same thing happens here in central Florida. The seabreeze boundaries move the storm west to east and east to west... the stronger seabreeze pushes the activity to that side of the state before the storms fall apart.

[2 Seam Fastball]

I was referring to the upper hemisphere in the USA. It is very rare for a storm to move from EAST to WEST. Though I have seen it.

[GalvestonDuck]

Yeah, I moved here from KY. I was used to W->E moving storms. And rain that lasted maybe an hour or two (if it was heavy at all). This stuff down here just blows me away. And when it rains....it rains and rains and rains.