I was in the desert a couple weeks ago with an audio engineer, taking decibel readings in what’s believed to be one of the most quiet places in the United States, and we talked—when we weren’t measuring the quiet—a lot about wind.
I find wind amazing, just so strange. Here are some things I’ve thought and/or recently learned about it:
—In the dictionary, wind means the perceptible movement of air. What word describes the non-perceptible movement of air?
—Wind makes trees bow, leaves twitch. A couple years ago, in the fall, I went on a hike in Telluride, Colorado, and all the leaves on the aspen trees were yellow, and in the wind it looked a forest of twinkling gold coins.
—Wind is mostly generated, I think, by differences in pressure in the atmosphere—by the sun’s uneven heating of our planet, and how our planet spins—and then the movement of air from those pressures. And, you know, sure.
—I love the fact you can’t put wind in a box.
—The study of wind is called anemology.
—A fun way to lose time during a busy afternoon is to read and think about the Coriolis force.
—As a kid, when my family lived in Tennessee, a tornado ripped through town and I was told to lie down in our bathtub while high winds tore up the trees. I don’t remember if I was scared so much as thrilled.
—As an adult, two years ago, I spent a couple days “swamping” debris with veterans in rural Florida after Hurricane Idalia devastated several communities—and I was definitely scared, frightened as hell one day, when a brown widow spider landed on my chest while I was taking a piss in the woods.
—Wind’s synonyms include gale, draft, and zephyr. Things can “be in the wind,” and I can “get wind of things,” I can “get the wind knocked out of me.” Wind also means nonsense, also farts.
—Mistrals, monsoons. Sirocco, sharav.
—A westerly wind blows from west to east. A southern wind blows north. I find this counter-intuitive.
—No wind = no sails = no crossing the seas.
—I had no idea the phrase “the doldroms” refers to an actual place, near the Equator, where there’s basically no wind. Makes sense to me: when I’m in the metaphorical doldroms, feeling bluesy, I notice I don’t experience any drive. Whereas “horse latitudes” is a zone for calm winds.
—If wind doesn’t encounter objects, it can’t be heard by the human ear?
—According to Wikipedia, the strongest observed winds in the Solar System occur on Neptune and Saturn. From NASA:
Neptune's winds can be three times stronger than Jupiter's and nine times stronger than Earth's. These winds whip clouds of frozen methane across the planet at speeds of more than 1,200 miles per hour (2,000 kilometers per hour). Even Earth's most powerful winds hit only about 250 miles per hour (400 kilometers per hour).
—And hey, it’s Wimbledon season, and there’s a good chance Carlos Alcaraz will win next week, and I remember Alcaraz once described playing matches at the Indian Wells tournament, in the California desert, as playing “in the windy,” and that is cute as fuck.
—I’ve had two umbrellas blown out in Manhattan.
—I had a hat fly off my head while whale-watching in Maine.
—I’ve never been knocked over by wind, but I came close, when I was twenty, standing on the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, and yeah, I was scared.
—When the sun begins to die, so will the wind.
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“Meditations in an Emergency” is a weekly essay from author Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with three-plus things to love, plus a monthly travel-lust ballyhoo.
Rosecrans is a correspondent for GQ, a contributor at Travel + Leisure, and the bestselling author of Everything Now: Lessons From the City-State of Los Angeles, winner of the California Book Award. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.
For books, articles, bio, contact info: rosecransbaldwin.com.