Hurricane question

[Paddy]

Do hurricanes rotate counterclockwise south of the equator also?

[Azrael256]

Nope.  Coriolis effect and all.  Read about it Here

[280plus]

The REAL question is : If you are on a ship and flush the toilet as it crosses the equator, will the water come to a stop and start spinning the other way?

[Azrael256]

Ok, so you've got a toilet in free-fall...

[MaterDei]

I don't think that Coriolis has much effect on which direction water spins as it drains, does it?  There is such a very small amount of water mass in a toilet bowl I don't think Coriolis has much effect.  More likely how the toilet was made.

[Paddy]

Thanks. Wikipedia is a great resource and I keep forgetting about it.

[mhdishere]

And what's the best cartridge for shooting a toilet at the equator in a hurricane?

[Azrael256]

I don't think that Coriolis has much effect on which direction water spins as it drains

If you had an absolutely perfect toilet with an exactly circular bowl, no surface imperfections whatsoever, and a flush valve that distributed water into the bowl evenly forming no eddies, no ground vibration whatsoever, the moon was in proper alignment, and plenty of chicken blood for the sacrifice, you *might* see the coriolis effect in action.  Aside from that, no, it has no noticeable effect on the way your plumbing drains.

And the proper cartridge would have to be something good and hefty.  I'm thinking .45-70.

[280plus]

Nope, toilet is too small a mass of water to be affected by crossing the equator. it will spin whichever way the toilet design causes it to do so. BUT when involved in crossing the equator ceremonies aboard ship the uninitiated Wogs were sometimes put on "flush watch(IIRC)" and had to continually flush the toilet and watch for the water to start spinning in the opposite direction, indicating that we had just in fact crossed the equator. LOL...the things you'll do after a few weeks at sea!

500 S&W Magnum...

[Art Eatman]

fill a wash-basin.  Open the drain.  At some point the direction of rotation will become visible.  It will always rotate in that direction.  In the southern hemisphere, it's the opposite.  Coriolis force.

Same reason that hurricanes in the southern hemisphere rotate clockwise--coriolis force.

You can also take a look at the maps of prevailing winds in the hemispheres.  "Trade winds" and such.  They make loops, flattened circles, between the oceans' shores.  The directions of the winds around the loops are opposite for the hemispheres.  At the Equator there are the "doldrums" where the wind hardly blows at all.

Art

[MaterDei]

I'll do some research for you all.  The eye of Rita will pass over my house some time tomorrow.  I'll let you know which direction it is rotating.  

[Art Eatman]

Counterclockwise, MaterDei.  "CCW", for short.

, Art