The amazing reason transatlantic flights reached the speed of sound this Wednesday

Flights from the US to Europe have reached similar speeds At the speed of sound. This was caused by a weather phenomenon known as the jet stream, which dropped approx One hour travel time.

According to NASA, sound travels approx 761 miles per hour (mph) or 1,100 feet per second “under constant sea level conditions”.

In the past 24 hours, some passenger flights have crossed the Atlantic from the eastern United States to Europe They reached a top speed of 778 mph, according to some flight tracking websites. “A little more than that 200 miles per hour above normal cruising speed,” the network posted this Wednesday cnn.

However, that speed still hasn’t broken the sound barrier of the legendary — and out of circulation — Concorde. It should be remembered that even though an airplane reaches a certain speed just like a car, its displacement in height changes due to the air around it.

Here are some examples of flights recorded by the tracking site Flightware Emirates 222 from Dallas to DubaiThey said it reached a top speed of 675 knots 57 minutes earlier this November 1, or 777 mphOn the coast of Newfoundland

Another, CNN cited, was the plane American Airlines 106 New York’s JFK airport arrived at Heathrow 54 minutes early on Wednesday morning, with a flight time of just six hours and seven minutes. The aircraft reached maximum speed 778 miles, or 676 knots, Even after Newfoundland.

Another flight from Los Angeles to London, a Delta flight, reached a speed of 186,745 mph and arrived half an hour early.

The jet stream or jet streamThere is Relatively strong air flow Extremes occur in Earth’s atmosphere, five to seven miles above the surface, the World Weather Organization explains.

The jet stream is “converged together Almost horizontal print In the upper troposphere or stratosphere, strong vertical and horizontal wind shear is characterized.

It has one or two maximum velocities and is typically several thousand miles wide, several hundred miles wide, and several miles thick.

The equivalent of seven miles from the surface of the planet At an altitude of about 37,000 feetAirplanes at cruising altitude glide easily in the jet stream.

“This week is a rapid cooling of the weather in the US, which in some form is moving into Europe. A storm named Ciaran“Because of the acceleration of the wind,” said meteorologist Sarah Tonks cnn.

“The cold air blowing across the US this week has increased the temperature difference between the US (colder) and the Atlantic Ocean (warmer),” Tonks said. “This increase in temperature gradient increases the speed of the jet stream, which is driven by temperature differences.”

This is why eastbound flights tend to be shorter than westbound flights, and long-haul flights accumulate time differences of an hour or more depending on the direction of travel.

Last July, Alvaro Silva, an expert at the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Climate Services Division, explained in a report on the significant changes the planet’s climate has experienced, “More and more studies are demonstrating connections between rapid warming in the Arctic and mid-latitude weather patterns, including atmospheric dynamics such as the jet stream.”

“The jet stream weakens and becomes wavy as warm air moves north and cold air moves south,” Silva said.

“Under these conditions, almost stable weather conditions have been established, resulting in heat waves and prolonged drought in some regions and heavy rains in some areas,” added Silva.

Exceptionally high temperatures in the tropics are the main meteorological origin of the prolonged heat wave in the Mediterranean Sea, Omar Badour, head of the WMO’s climate watchdog, was quoted in the report as saying.