East Asia versus western North America

[nei]

Originally Posted by theunbrainwashed

The Siberian anticyclone keeps temps down in mainland Asia. It constantly funnels cold air from Siberia down to China's southern coastline. This is caused by a huge high pressure cell that stays, more or less, constant. North America has a similar system, but ours is smaller and is prone to shifting places quite a bit, unlike the Siberian counterpart

Coastal East Asia is also much drier than the Northeast US, difference is from the dry winters there. Summers are actually a bit wetter from the strong monsoon.

[theunbrainwashed]

Originally Posted by nei

Coastal East Asia is also much drier than the Northeast US, difference is from the dry winters there. Summers are actually a bit wetter from the strong monsoon.

Yes, I agree. I just looked at the current jet stream and you can see the high pressure in northern Canada is weak, so it's letting the air go down the Alaskan panhandle and into BC, largely staying in Canada. Whereas right now the weak high pressure is letting the tropical jet stream come into the east coast US. If you look at a map of the jet stream forecast and temperature forecast, the two line up pretty well.

I believe if I remember my reading right, the strong monsoon in eastern Asia is caused by the huge landmass heating up a lot during summer, pulling in moisture from the Pacific due to temperature gradient. Our landmass is much smaller, so we can have even precip during the year (east of the Rockies anyway). The same thing happens in Arizona. It gets so hot in the Sonoran Desert, that it pulls moisture from the Gulf of California.

[nei]

Our summer weatherflow isn't consistently from the south or southeast as it is East Asia. It might not just be the continent size but that the Pacific Ocean has stronger highs and lows, and a larger area of hot seas.

[theunbrainwashed]

Originally Posted by nei

Our summer weatherflow isn't consistently from the south or southeast as it is East Asia. It might not just be the continent size but that the Pacific Ocean has stronger highs and lows, and a larger area of hot seas.

Of course not. Anyone can see that watching the Weather Channel with the cold fronts moving down from Canada in all months of the year that's how we get severe weather. Eats Asia is just constant in its climate whereas ours is pretty variable. But for the purpose of this topic, the fact remains that ALL western sides of continents are milder (in winter) than the east above 35° in both hemispheres , except the Strait of Magellan region where it's too small; except the rain shadow effect from the Andes.