On this day in 1781, General George Washington, commanding a force of 17,000 French and Continental troops, begins the siege known as the Battle of Yorktown against British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and a contingent of 9,000 British troops at Yorktown, Virginia, in the most important battle of the Revolutionary War.
Earth's rotation causes the trade winds, in a way. If Earth didn't rotate, the wind at these latitudes would blow straight from the subtropical highs to the ITCZ.n the Northern Hemisphere, the Earth rotates counterclockwise so the wind is deflected to the right. The Southern Hemisphere rotates clockwise deflecting the wind to the left. Regardless, the Coriolis effect only influences the direction of the wind, not its speed.
The westerlies (blue arrows) and trade winds (yellow and brown arrows) The trade winds are the prevailing pattern of easterly surface winds found in the tropics, within the lower portion of the Earth's atmosphere, in the lower section of the troposphere near the Earth's equator. The trade winds blow predominantly from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere and from the southeast in the Southern Hemisphere, strengthening during the winter and when the Arctic oscillation is in its warm phase. Trade winds have been used by captains of sailing ships to cross the worl