….the winds of change are blowing fast these days…
…news today of the Jet Stream causing both weather and aviation experts to scratch their heads in disbelief!
A weather balloon launched by the National Weather Service office east of New York City in Upton, New York, at 7 p.m. EST Monday night measured 231-mph winds at the 250-millibar pressure level in the atmosphere, or about 35,000 feet above the surface. That is the strongest wind on record at this altitude for the New York City area.
This from the WEATHER CHANNEL reporting today,
A Virgin Atlantic flight from Los Angeles to London Monday night flew into a zone of maximum winds, known as a jet streak, embedded within the main jet stream located over central Pennsylvania.
That jet, a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, cruised at speeds as high as 801 mph over central Pennsylvania, according to live flight-tracking website FlightAware.com.
“[N]ever ever seen this kind of tailwind in my life as a commercial pilot,” tweeted Peter James, a New England-based jet captain with 25 years of experience, according to his Twitter profile.
The 801-mph ground speed might be a record for the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, which, in the past, has reached speeds as high as 776 mph, as pointed out by the Washington Post.
Lately, we have heard a lot about Jet Stream changes occurring on the planet..
The researchers said they were surprised by how big a role other pollutants play in the jet stream’s behavior, especially aerosols—microscopic solid or liquid particles from industry, agriculture, volcanoes and plants. Aerosols have a cooling effect that partially counteracts the jet stream changes caused by greenhouse gases, said co-author Dim Comou, a climate and extreme weather researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
“The aerosols forcing was a bit of a surprise to us,” Comou said. “Those emissions are expected to decrease rapidly in the mid-latitude regions in the next 10 to 30 years” because of phasing out of pollution to protect people from breathing unhealthy air.
As for this new event, plane passengers coming East will enjoy newfound speed. Those westbound will face an extra half hour of travel…
