Howling Wind

This season brings some of the maddest wind, whipping through the neighborhood like nobody has ever seen before. It howls like a lost ghost seeking revenge upon some distant enemy who is speeding away into the black of night. You try to remember warm places you have been, but the violence of this gale rips through the barrier of double pane glass and chills you to the bone. Historically, the Beaufort wind force scale provides an empirical description of wind speed based on observed sea conditions. Originally it was a 13-level scale, but during the 1940s, the scale was expanded to 17 levels. There are general terms that differentiate winds of different average speeds such as a breeze, a gale, a storm, tornado, or a hurricane. Within the Beaufort scale, gale-force winds lie between 28 knots (52 km/h) and 55 knots (102 km/h) with preceding adjectives such as moderate, fresh, strong, and whole used to differentiate the wind's strength within the gale category. A storm has winds of 56 knots (104 km/h) to 63 knots (117 km/h). Easterly winds, on average, dominate the flow pattern across the poles, westerly winds blow across the mid-latitudes of the earth, to the north of the subtropical ridge, while easterlies again dominate the tropics. Many of the Earth's deserts lie near the average latitude of the subtropical ridge, where descent reduces the relative humidity of the air mass. The strongest winds are in the mid-latitudes where cold Arctic air meets warm air from the tropics. This sound uses the following file from Freesound: http://www.freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/127258/