Zonal Flow

What is zonal flow? We refer to flow as the direction of wind current in the atmosphere. This is similar to the way water flows in a stream or river. Occasionally, you may see meteorologists and forecasters use the terms meridional, zonal, and split flow. I have already made a post about split flow, so I thought I should follow up with a post about zonal flow.

Zonal flow refers to an upper level wind pattern to flows parallel or almost parallel to lines of latitude. Zonal flow often makes low pressure systems move across an area at a high rate of speed. Despite moving at higher rates of speeds, low pressure systems are usually much weaker due to the lack of temperature advections associated with them.

Since now we understand split flow and zonal flow, be on the lookout for meridional flow in the future!