Placing Geographical Zones: Part III

Now that we have the eastern half of our world laid out, let’s start setting up the west. There are only major three landmasses in the western hemisphere. With the variety in location and shape, they will all be quite different from one another. Let’s start with the thin, northeastern continent and then in subsequent articles work our way clockwise to the rest.

The Winds

First, we need to outline the major wind fronts in the west. There are three sources to draw from. Some of the fronts coming in from the east might be originating around the planet in the west. Others might continue up or down around the world. And finally, there are western wind patterns to consider.

Those original winds had to start somewhere. I’m going to say that they start in the west in that huge stretch of ocean between the continents we’re focusing on now. There’s nothing to break the central wind up as it blows along the equator and around to the east. So, once again, not all of this wind force will stay exactly on the equator, especially since from the starting point these winds are at their strongest. They’ll also affect a wider part of the world because (in my version of things) the area creating the winds is a strip that equally reaches north and south from the equator, all of which is open ocean.

This continent looks kind of like the number “3,” but in fact it will be fairly uniform in its looks and environment. The major wind fronts aren’t an issue here because as you can see from the lines, they don’t cross the continent. These winds are, however, formed because the oval-shaped area of the ocean I’ve outlined in black is along a plate boundary that reaches south from the southern tip of this land mass as shown in the pink line in the previous picture.

At this particular plate meeting spot there’s no mountains being pushed up. Instead, there are two plates that are pulling each other down into the underlying magma, forming a trench. Within the large chasm this event creates there is water down practically in the magma itself as you see in the associated image. This water gets heated to intense levels, and so this part of the ocean is warmer than surrounding areas.

When the warmed water reaches the surface (remember, heat rises) it begins to evaporate. Each of these drops of water contains a certain amount of warmth left over from being in the ocean, puddle, or wherever it came from--the ocean in our case. These water molecules are still warmer than the air, so they continue to rise as they scatter on the winds. However, while much of the heat might be lost, there is a constant issue of barometric/air pressure.

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