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.
If the Earth didn't rotate, winds would travel either north or south due to differences in temperature and pressure at different latitudes. But since the Earth does rotate, the Coriolis force deflects these winds to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere. Keep Reading Below In the Northern Hemisphere, this deflection causes the wind flow around high pressure systems to go clockwise while flow around low-pressure systems travels counterclockwise. Imagine a low-pressure system as a vacuum that sucks all the surrounding air straight towards it, creating many vectors of wind that all focus on one spot.