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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff from how Stuff works dot com where
Speaker 1: smart happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question, what
Speaker 1: is a northeaster? Nor Easters can occur in the eastern
Speaker 1: United States anytime between October and April, when moisture and
Speaker 1: cold air are plentiful. They're known for dumping heavy amounts
Speaker 1: of rain and snow, producing hurricane force winds and creating
Speaker 1: high surfs that caused severe beach erosion and coastal flooding. Obviously,
Speaker 1: this looks a lot like a hurricane, so when a
Speaker 1: big nor Easter comes through, it's gonna make the news.
Speaker 1: Nor Easter is named for the winds that blow in
Speaker 1: from the northeast and drive the storm up the East
Speaker 1: coast along the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is a
Speaker 1: band of warm water that lies off the Atlantic coast
Speaker 1: of the United States. There are two main components to
Speaker 1: a northeaster. First, there's the Gulf Stream low pressure system.
Speaker 1: These systems generate off the coast of Florida. The air
Speaker 1: above the Gulf Stream warms and spawns a low pressure system.
Speaker 1: This low circulates off the southeastern US coast, gathering warm
Speaker 1: air and moisture from the Atlantic Ocean. Strong northeasterly winds
Speaker 1: at the leading edge of the storm pull it up
Speaker 1: the east coast. Second, there's an Arctic high pressure system.
Speaker 1: As the strong northeasterly winds pull the storm up the coast,
Speaker 1: it meets with cold Arctic air blowing down from Canada.
Speaker 1: When the two systems collide, the moisture and cold air
Speaker 1: produce a mix of precipitation and a lot of wind.
Speaker 1: Winter conditions make nor'easters a normal occurrence, but only a
Speaker 1: handful actually gather the force and powered cause problems inland.
Speaker 1: The resulting precipitation depends on how close you are to
Speaker 1: the converging point of the two storms. A powerful nor'easter
Speaker 1: can bring travel to a standstill, closing city streets and
Speaker 1: making it nearly impossible to get anywhere for days. The
Speaker 1: thing to remember with northeasters is that the storm systems
Speaker 1: occur frequently, but only a few of them are powerful
Speaker 1: enough to make it into the news. There are two
Speaker 1: types of northeaster's offshore farming. These are the storms you
Speaker 1: hear about in the news. It's a newsworthy storm that
Speaker 1: moves east of the East coast cities, dumping lots of
Speaker 1: heavy snow. In an offshore farming storm, the hardest hit
Speaker 1: metropolitan areas are likely to be Washington, d C, Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: New York City, in Boston. Eventually, the system moves far
Speaker 1: enough north that the Canadian jet stream pushes it off
Speaker 1: the coast, and then there's onshore farming. These storms are
Speaker 1: less exciting than offshore farming storms. They move westst of
Speaker 1: East coast cities with gusting winds and mostly rain. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, does that
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Speaker 1: shows and movies directly to your home is a breeze
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Speaker 1: dot com slash stuff and sign up today.