May 7, 1998 transcript #: 232-4  
Subject(s): earth rotation  
Title: BRAINSTORM ANSWER: EAST TO WEST

Hi I’m Dave Thurlow from the Mount Washington Observatory. In a recent Brainstorm question sent out your way here on The Weather Notebook, I asked the following question.  What would it take to make the world’s weather turn around and go the other way?  Right now weather moves from west to east, the same way that the planet spins on its axis.  Now it would be a real trick to pull this off and it would make for some big changes in the weather.  Here’s John Scruton, from right here in New Hampshire with his answer.   

“I listen to New Hampshire Public Radio and the answer is as follows.  In order to reverse the direction of the flow of weather, you would have to reverse the direction of the rotation of the earth.  For us in New England that would mean our weather would become much more like that of the Pacific Northwest, because the flow would be primarily off the ocean and it would be cool and damp.  Whereas the Pacific Northwest would then be receiving their weather flowing primarily from the continental United States and Canada and it would be much more like that of New England.”   

Yep, that’s it pretty much, you’d actually have to make the earth come to a stop…… then give it a push the other way from east to west. If the earth spun backwards the weather would move backwards and flip flop the climates found on the east and west coasts. If this ever happens, we'll keep you posted. For transcripts, please visit our website, www.mountwashington.org/notebook. Our show's senior consulting producer is Jay Allison and our engineer is Sean Doucette. The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory. Funding comes from Subaru the beauty of all wheel drive and from the National Science Foundation.