Chinook winds /ʃɪˈnʊk/, or simply chinooks, are foehn winds[1] in the interior West of North America, where the Canadian Prairies and Great Plains meet various mountain ranges, although the original usage is in reference to wet, warm coastal winds in the Pacific Northwest.[2] Chinook is claimed by popular folk-etymology to mean snow-eater, but it is really the name of the people in the region where the usage was first derived. The reference to a wind or weather system, simply a Chinook, originally meant a warming wind from the ocean into the interior regions of the Northwest of the USA (the Chinook people lived near the ocean, along the lower Columbia River). A strong Chinook can make snow one foot deep almost vanish in one day. The snow partly melts and partly evaporates in the dry wind. Chinook winds have been observed to raise winter temperature, often from below -20°C (-4°F) to as high as 10-20°C (50-68°F) for a few hours or days, then temperatures plummet to their base levels. The greatest recorded temperature change in 24 hours was caused by Chinook winds on January 15, 1972, in Loma, Montana; the temperature rose from -48 to 9°C (-54 to 48°F).[3]
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 18:55:07 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015