THE WEATHER AND CIRCULATION OF MAY 1970 A Generally Warm Month Associated With Small Amplitude Flow

• Main Author: Julian W. Posey
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Bering Sea; Baffin Island; Gulf of Alaska; Arctic Basin; Baffin; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.395.2117; http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/098/mwr-098-08-0621.pdf

Two of the three major lowpressure centers normally present in the 700-mb circulation of May were in their usual locations this year, one near Baffin Island and the other near the Asian mainland over the Arctic Basin (fig. 1). The third major “center of action, ” which is ordinarily over the Bering Sea in May, was in the Gulf of Alaska. Comparison with the April circulation (Taubensee 1970) indicates that the main band of westerlies is contracting more rapidly than normal this year (fig. 2). Some concrete evidence for this is given by the fact that the subtropical westerlies over the western part of the Northern Hemisphere dropped from an average of 5.9 m sec- ’ in April, which is considerably above normal, to a below-normal 2.0 m sec-I in May, while high latitude westerlies in the same longitude remained above normal.