Low pressure area

A low pressure area, or low for short, is a word used in meteorology (the study of weather) that means a place where the atmospheric pressure is lowest compared to the surrounding area. Coriolis effect causes winds to blow counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in southern hemisphere. This makes storms like tropical cyclones, extratropical cyclones, subtropical cyclones, and subpolar cyclones. They are called "low-pressure cells" in some English-speaking countries.

An example of a low-pressure system off the southwestern coast of Iceland on September 4, 2003.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.