Blowing in the Wind

Blowing in the Wind

Blowing in the Wind
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	high interest, readability grades 5 to 6
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	4.96

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		easterly, northerly, southerly, subtropical, whichever, atmosphere, zone, rushes, imagine, greatly, rotation, latitude, northeast, winds, hemisphere, form
	content words:		Coriolis Effect, United States

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Blowing in the Wind
By Patti Hutchison

¹     Imagine you are outside working on a hot summer day. You would give anything for just a little breeze. That would help you cool off. What makes the wind blow? The short answer is that differences in temperature and pressure cause wind. But wind is a little more complicated than that. There are global wind systems that have a huge effect on our weather.

²     Wind is moving air. Warm air rises. Cold, dense air rushes in to take its place. This causes wind.

³     The rotation of the earth from west to east causes the Coriolis Effect. This means that particles of air are turned to the right in the northern hemisphere. The earth is hot in some places and cold in others. Together, the Coriolis Effect and the uneven heating of the earth produce global wind systems. These systems move warm air to cold places and cooler air to warm areas. This helps to keep the climate zones in balance. No one place can keep on getting hotter or colder.

Paragraphs 4 to 9:
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