Weather Tidbits: African Easterly Jet

We’ll be discussing the African Easterly Jet in this edition of Weather Tidbits. The African Easterly Jet is a part of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, and extends off of the west coast of Africa. The easterly jet is enhanced by a temperature gradient that sets up between the hot Saharan Desert and the cooler rain forests in central to southern Africa. The wind flow and convergence are enhanced between these two regions, thus forming the African Easterly Jet. This provides an origin source for tropical waves. Perturbations in the jet help produce tropical waves. These perturbations enhance vorticity, or atmospheric spin, and can create tropical waves and eventually tropical cyclones if these perturbations run into a favorable environment for further development out in the Atlantic Basin.