Thursday, April 7, 2011

Fiji weather

Fiji has a warm tropical marine climate. The temperature does not vary much year round, staying pretty warm. ated to the right of Australia and is in the Tropic of Capricorn which makes the temperatures and humidity higher year round. The diurnal temperature tends to stay about the same all year because of this location.)

The wet seasons in Fiji tends to be December through April while the drier season is May through November. (When Fiji changes fromt he wet to dry season, the temperature stays about the same, only dropping at night.)



Being reasonably close to the equator, Fiji usually has maritime equatorial (hot and humid) and maritime tropical (warm and moist) air masses. (The location of Fiji allows some of the islands to be in the mE air masses and other islands are closer to the mT air masses.)


Early mornings in Fiji have some cumulonimbus clouds forming lower and altostratus clouds up a little higher. The cumulonimbus clouds could indicate that there is a little bit of cold air coming into the warm air.
(This picture shows how the clouds that form in the early mornings in Viti Levu, Fiji. There are only two levels of clouds in this picture. Although the altostratus clouds are higher than the cumulonimbus, they are both reasonably low)

Cyclones form when winds from a low pressure system starts to gather clouds and the warm water temperatures and evaporates to form even more clouds. It then pulls the clouds in and rotates them. The Coriolis Effect also helps the cyclones start even though it is weaker near the equator.
(This picture shows a cyclone that is starting to form over Fiji. You can see where the low pressure system is starting to spin the clouds where a cyclone is likely to form.)

The trade winds in Fiji mostly come from the south east. The winds are only moderate winds and seem to pick up in intensity in May to November. The days are hot and the nights tend to be cooled by the winds. (This picture shows the wind speeds blowing west to east against the trade winds and bringing unusual weather to Fiji. Mostly more wind than usual.)


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