Chapter 12 Small Scale Winds Gap winds Gravity waves Haboobs Harmattan Heat bursts Hira oroshi Katabatic winds Koembang Lake breezes Lenticular cloud Leste Levanter Leveche Microburst Mistral Morning glory Mountain breezes Norte Puelche Santa Ana Wind Simoom Sirocco Southerly buster Squamish Tehuantepecer Turbulence Viscosity Von Karman Vortex street Willy willy Zonda Key Terms Beg wind Blue norther Bora Boulder windstorms Bow echo Buran Chinook Coastal front Cold air damming Derecho Dust bowl Dust devils Dust storms Eddies Fall wind Foehn Summary Winds occur on every imaginable scale Small scale winds are driven primarily by the PGF and are slowed by the effects of friction The main type of friction in a fluid such as the atmosphere is actually turbulence caused by swirling eddies of different sizes These eddies are stirred up by the Sun by the wind blowing around obstacles and by the atmosphere itself This causes the characteristic gustiness of winds that is frequently observed An amazing variety of small scale winds exists in the US Some winds are gentale such as those that slide mountain breezes down the sides of the Rockies Other winds are violent such as derechos and microbursts dropping out of thunderstorms or Boulder windstorms blowing out of the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies A few are deceptive such as the smooth lenticular clouds that juds a commontion of turbulence underneath its polished side There are dry winds that eat snow and cause fires and there are rippling gravity waves that draw lines in the clouds and on rare occasions spark windstorms These kinds of winds are not limited to the US A dazzling array of small scale winds exist worldwide for all of their diversity however small scale winds on our planet can generally be attributed to the interaction between a pressure gradient and geographic features such as mountains coastlines plains and lakes
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