In article ,
(I R A Darth Aggie) wrote:

On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 22:57:41 +1200,
Lawrence D¹Oliveiro , in
wrote:
+ I keep seeing descriptions (e.g.
+ http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gl)/guides/mtr/fw/fric.rxml) of winds
+ blowing parallel to isobars. Yet surely this is not physically possible?

Geostrophic winds happen rarely in the real world. And they are, by
definition, the component parallel to isobars.

I thought the definition
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gl)/ww...hret=/guides/m
tr/fw/fric.rxml was that the Coriolis force was in balance with the
pressure gradient force. Which I took to mean, that component of the
pressure gradient force perpendicular to the direction of the wind.

As long as the drag is nonzero, there must be a component of the
pressure gradient force in the direction of the motion of the wind, to
offset the drag. So the wind can never be exactly parallel to the
isobars.