East wind

“ On days when the South Wind and the North Wind wrestle together, and when the Wind from the East smites the West Wind in shame before him, thou mayst see him raise his snowy head and long white beard above the grey-green waves of the sea, and lash the white-maned, unbridled, fierce sea-horses into fury before him. ”

“ And in summer and winter, from north, south, east, or west, the wind brings us news from the sea: the savor of salt, gray billows of cloud and fog, clear stark bright days following one another through a season. The southwest gales of summer beat down ripe grasses in the field and feather willow and poplar with silver; the great autumn gales go trumpeting through the land; the nor’easter sends surf thundering on the outer shore; and there are the soft moist winds that relax the high-wrought tension of humans, and melt the rigors of winter. ”

“ Still, the easterly winds, and, generally speaking, the easterly weather all the world over, is characterized by regularity and persistence.
As a ruler, the East Wind has a remarkable stability; as an invader of the high latitudes lying under the tumultuous sway of his great brother, the Wind of the West, he is extremely difficult to dislodge, by the reason of his cold craftiness and profound duplicity.
The narrow seas around these isles, where British admirals keep watch and ward upon the marches of the Atlantic Ocean, are subject to the turbulent sway of the West Wind. ”

“ Why do the winds from north and NW, which cause the mercury to descend and stand lower than any other upon the south and east coasts, as also in the open sea, and in the south-west bight of the gulph of Carpentaria, make it rise upon the outer part of the north coast, with the same, or even worse weather?
Why should the north-east wind, which occasions a fall in the barometer upon the south coast, considerably below the mean standard, be attended with a rise above the mean upon the east and north coasts? ”

“ Although this wind is so very piercing in winter, yet I think the people never complain so much of cold as when the north-east wind blows; for my own part I never found the air so agreeable, let the season of the year be what it would, as with the north-west wind. The north-east wind is also cold, but it renders the air raw and damp. ”

“ The east wind, which extends to about 25 or 30 degrees on each side the equator, exerts its action round the globe in the torrid zone; the north wind almost always as constantly in the frigid zones. Therefore it may be said that the east wind occupies the torrid zone, the north wind the frigid zones, and with respect to the temperate zone, the winds which reign there are merely currents [102] of air produced by these two winds, whose direction tends to the eastern points. ”

“ If it begins to blow toward the depressed centre of the storm as a north wind, it trends to the west, and is felt as a northeaster; if it begins as a south wind, it diverges as a southwester; if as an east wind, it becomes a southeaster ”

“ But as the day went on the stormy sky lowered yet more and more blackly, the wind, shifting between east and north, swooped in angry gusts across the black waters, or blew in so fierce a gale that the shallop scarcely bore her close-reefed sails, and more than once careened so as to ship alarming seas. ”

“ Winds.--During the winter months, the wind is mostly from south to west, blowing with great violence for a week together; afterwards it veers round to the southward and south-east, which brings fine weather for a few days, then it veers to east, north-east, and north-west, blowing in heavy gales, and generally accompanied with violent torrents of rain: after which it shifts to south-west: indeed, I do not remember one instance of the wind coming to the north-east, round by west. The south-east wind blows during the summer with very little variation, and sometimes very strong. ”

“ Nature would prevent it. This celebrated "East-wind" we shall have occasion to analyze and explain, in the investigation of the first voyage around the Continent of Africa by the Tyrians. In the Pacific Ocean the East wind would prevent accidental arrival on the shores of the Western Continent; but in the Atlantic Ocean the same wind would aid and expedite such an arrival, which, however, would be upon the Eastern, and not the Western coast of America! ”

“ Rare is the wind from the west, rarer from the south-west. North-easters are a pronounced feature. They work up by diurnal and easy grades from gentleness to strength, thunder coming as a climax. After a succession of calm days and days of gentle breezes from the east-south-east and east, the north-easter begins softly, and daily gathers courage and assumption, to find in the course of a week or two its haughty spirit subdued by thunder and rain showers. ”

“ I assure you, if there had been the very least east in the wind, I could not have ventured out with my neuralgia. East winds are so dangerous. People who are strong, of course—But it was because the wind was south that I thought it so safe. ”

“ The wind being north-northeast and east three days before the sun crosses the line, then southeast by way of east, then calm on the 23d, will bring enough and stormy winds from east and west all the winter. ”

“ It may sometimes happen that a north-east wind having passed over us may be bent down and driven back before it has acquired any heat from the climate, and may thus for a few hours or a day have a south-west direction, and from its descending from a higher region of the atmosphere may possess a greater degree of cold than an inferior north east current of air. ”

“ S.E. winds bring rain and dirty weather invariably, and are fortunately not of frequent occurrence. It is a curious fact that while in spring and summer the east wind brings with it an icy chill, while the west winds are warm and genial, the latter in the winter time bring whatever frosty weather comes to pass, which is immediately broken up into thaw by a change in the wind to east. ”

“ The Wind is variable also, but if you be within 100 leagues of the European Continent, it is generally inclined to North-East
From 34 degrees, if you be inclining to the coast of Africa, or about the Meridian of the Canaries, the Wind is so certain, and constantly at North-East (or within two points) that it is rare to find it otherwise. Yet in Winter, upon the coast of Africa there are sometimes Westerly storms, that are violent, but of no long continuance. And in Summer, when it is sometimes calme, the Air will come variably. These North-East-Winds hold most commonly to 8. ”

“ For as the sun, in moving from east to west, heats the air more immediately under him, and thereby expands it; the air to the eastward is constantly rushing towards the west to restore the equilibrium, or natural state of the atmosphere; and this occasions a perpetual east wind in those limits. ”

“ The cool east wind, which had blown in the morning, and promised a fine day, changed, as is very common in these regions, towards noon into a hot south wind, and made us very uncomfortable and susceptible of the fatigue of a long march, particularly as the distance proved much greater than we had expected. ”

“ The East Wind, an interloper in the dominions of Westerly weather, is an impassive-faced tyrant with a sharp poniard held behind his back for a treacherous stab. ”

“ Northwest wind brings a short storm;
A northeast wind brings a long storm. 86Northwest Winds.
Northwest wind brings only rain showers.
If there be a change of wind from the northwest or west to the southwest or south, or else from the northeast or east to the southeast or south, expect wet weather.
If the northwest or north winds blow with rain or snow during three or four days in the winter and then the wind passes to the south through the west, expect continued rain. ”

“ Some of the scientific men say that the north-east monsoon is not a monsoon at all, but only the north-east trade-wind taking its regular course, which has been disturbed by the more powerful wind from the south-west. ”

“ Even nowadays, with all the improvements there are in things, there's hardly ever a nor'-east wind on this coast, and in those days—two hundred years and more ago—I expect the wind just shifted about through three points of the compass, nor'-west, west, and sou'-west. ”

“ In the normal meteorological state of France and Europe, the west wind, which is the counter-current of the trade-winds that constantly blow from the east under the tropics—the west wind, I say, after having touched France and Europe by the western shores, re-descends by Marseilles and the Mediterranean, Constantinople and the Archipelago, Astrakan and the Caspian Sea, in order to merge again into the great circuit of the general winds, and be thus carried again into the equatorial current. ”

“ Conflicts in the air.—"The atmosphere, alternately clear and cloudy, moves more definitely over from the north-west, so that it appears as if no combat was there waged, and the south-east gives place without a contest. The land breezes become less frequent, and the phenomena by day and night become, in a certain sense, more accordant with each other. Storms of wind and rain beneath a clouded sky alternate with severe gales and steady winds. In the last of November the west monsoon is permanent. ”

“ Those that are produced and come from the coolest directions, the north and northeast winds, blow in blasts that are rarefied by the great dryness in the atmosphere, but the south wind and the others that assail us from the direction of the sun's course are very damp, and always bring rain, because they reach us from warm regions after being well heated there, and licking up and carrying off the moisture from the whole country, they pour it out on the regions in the north. ”

“ As she proceeds onwards, however, and makes a little more southing, the wind will haul more and more round from the south to the south-east, then east-south-east, and eventually to east at the southern limit of the Trade-wind. ”

“ Thus, in the Northern Hemisphere, from an easterly wind, which characterizes the northern margin of the storm, its center will bear south; from a northerly wind the center will bear east; from a westerly wind it will bear north, and from a southerly wind, west. But in the Southern Hemisphere, from an easterly wind, the center of the storm bears north; from a southerly wind the center bears east ”

“ When the wind comes from the north-east, even in the middle of summer, it cools the atmosphere to such a degree, as to force the inhabitants to cover themselves with additional clothing. The southerly wind brings heat and fine weather ”

“ The strong southerly and southeast winds that prevail here during the summer season are the most severe, and, strange to say, they are the ones which are the coldest and the chilliest—a [Pg 123] north wind is always warmer! ”