Page 4 - Surface Winds News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Lot of different factors go into this. this is using slight aware. notice you can use the path of the flight. this is the last spot that they were able to track that flight. when we take a look alt the wind, here is that pyramid again, looking where we believe the flight may have gone down, ten miles an hour. we look at not only the surface winds, boat the upper level winds, most flights fly somewhere between 20 to 40,000 feet above the surface. so you have to take into account, multiple layers of the atmosphere and the winds that are encountered. also looking at the satellites, again the sthd...

Measured on this planet. hurricane hunters set to head into patricia over the next few hours to get more information about its strength. i'm joined now via skype by lieutenant colonel john talbott, the chief meteorologist for the 53rd weather reconnaissance squadron. if this is the strongest storm on record, why fly right into it? >> good afternoon. well, this is really the only way to determine what the actual intensity is. you have to measure that. we can make a good guess by satellite but aircraft are really still the only way to actually measure that. it's very important for the public war...

Tropical pacific ocean, especially the central pacific and east pacific along the coast of peru. so one signal is you start to see above normal water temperatures at the surface. if those water temperatures are also above normal with depth, then that starts to have some power. >> there's this sort of energy that's kind of burbling, right, getting hotter and hotter and send the patterns across the world. >> you get started quickly enough, you get feedback where the changes in the ocean impact the surface winds in a way that can reinforce the ocean warming so you can kind of lock into the patter...

>> how often do these el ninos come? >> on average, anywhere between every three and seven years. >> every three and seven. it's not like a comet, right, so we don't know if it's coming regularly. what do we start looking for to sort of find out why are people increasingly confident that's what we're headed toward? >> we're looking for a few things. we're looking at surface temperatures in parts of the tropical pacific ocean, especially the central pacific and east pacific along the coast of peru. so one signal is you start to see above normal water temperatures at the surface. if those water ...

Come? >> on average, anywhere between every three and seven years. >> every three and seven. it's not like a comet, right, so we don't know if it's coming regularly. what do we start looking for to sort of find out why are people increasingly confident that's what we're headed toward? >> we're looking for a few things. we're looking at surface temperatures in parts of the tropical pacific ocean, especially the central pacific and east pacific along the coast of peru. so one signal is you start to see above normal water temperatures at the surface. if those water temperatures are also above nor...