Jet stream

Jet stream against the sunset.

Meteorologist Orelon Sidney explains why jet streams are so important to forecasting. - Videos from The Weather Channel | weather.com

Sign up to receive our latest reporting on climate change, energy and environmental justice, sent directly to your inbox. Subscribe here. The jet stream—a powerful river of wind high in the atmosphere—shapes the Northern Hemisphere’s weather, including bitter cold snaps. Because it plays a key role in weather extremes, climate scientists are striving to understand […]

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Most of us are not even aware of the strong and meandering bands of winds occurring high up in the atmosphere. In this post, we take a look at what a jet stream is and how it forms. We also examine its effect on weather systems:

3D map showing Hadley cells in relationship to trade winds on the surface.

Jet streams are fast-flowing winds that circulate over the globe at a higher atmosphere. The major jet streams that form via the global air circulation are subtropical jet streams and polar jet streams. These jet streams are permanent winds that exist in both the northern and the southern hemispheres, and flow around the globe all around the year. The main thing that is necessary for the formation of the jet stream is two different kinds of temperature and a little bit of spin.