Prevailing Winds - General
Map of Prevailing Winds:
There are three major sets of prevailing winds in Sornieth. There may be more, since we don't actually know how big the world is and we haven't explored the world's oceans yet. From southernmost to northernmost, these prevailing winds are:
The first is
Icewarden's Teeth, the southernmost of the prevailing winds. It blows from east to west, bringing long, cold blizzards to the Southern Icefield. It is also the fastest prevailing wind, averaging about 15 mph, with gusts upwards of 60 mph.
The second is the
Western Trade Wind, blowing from west to east, which interacts with the Icewarden's teeth to perpetuate the Vortex. The Western Trade Wind brings a bit of moisture to the Sunbeam Ruins from the Sea of a Thousand Currents and rain to the Windswept Plateau from the Wind-Arcane bay. This windstream is more gentle, averaging about 11 mph.
The third is the
Northern Windstream, which is nearly identical to the Western Trade Wind, only it occurs over Dragonhome and the Viridian Labyrinth. These two westerly winds angle toward each other, creating a convergence zone over the equator. (Sidenote: Although we are not sure where the equator lies, judging from average flight temperatures and alike biomes, our best guess is that the equator sits on the southern border of both Dragonhome and the Viridian Labyrinth, cutting across the top of Plague and Shadow.)
Our
Vortex functions as a gear, forcing the Icewarden's teeth and the Western Trade Winds apart. Both winds feed into it, and it feeds into them in return, in a self-perpetuating cycle.
Theoretically, there is another Vortex in the far north, possibly on the other side of the planet, holding back a northerly Icewarden's teeth. The presence of storms on the northern coastline of Dragonhome, the Viridian Labyrinth, and the Starfall Isles seem to indicate this, as they are a calmer mirror to the volatile storms experienced by the Ashfall Waste and Shifting Expanse. Read more about the Vortex
here.
There are also
doldrums to watch out for: to the immediate east and west of the Vortex, off the western coast of the Shifting Expanse and the Sunbeam Ruins.
There is a line of equatorial doldrums formed where the two northern windstreams merge. This includes the Observatory, the border between the Scarred Wasteland and Dragonhome, northern half of the Tangled Wood, and the channel between the Sunbeam Ruins and the Viridian Labyrinth.
Travelers flying through these passages should be wary of outflying the wind beneath their wings and crashing due to over exhaustion.
