ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The big weather story Tuesday is the wind and you may be wondering what is the driving force for the higher wind speeds.

A simplistic way to think about a gusty wind is an example of opening a bottle of pop. If bottle is cold enough, you will hear a “whooshing” sound when opening the top. That is the equalization or the change in pressure. This is a crude example, but effective way of describing what is happening in our atmosphere.

At a much larger scale weather systems act in a similar manner. Lines of equal pressure, called isobars, illustrate the change of pressure over a given distance. When we have a deep low pressure system moving across the Great Lakes, such as on Tuesday, winds were expected to be in the range of 40 to 65 miles per hour with a special concern for the higher elevations such as the Bristol Hills. 

Interesting to note that this is just storm number one. We also have storm number two that is likely going to hit this weekend and maybe storm number three for later next week. A very busy and active weather pattern for Western New York.