You Know It Is Spring when the Buzzards Return©

 

 

“Turkey Vulture C. a. septentrionalis (Canada)”, Peter K Burian, October 8, 2017, from Wikimedia, HERE.  Note the reddish head and the silvery gray feathers along the edge of its wings.

There are three sure signs that spring is on the way in  the northeastern United States where I live, the sugar maple trees start running (for more on maple syrup, read “Making Maple Syrup and Survival©”, HERE), the snowdrops start poking their white heads up above the snow (for more on snowdrops, read “The Common Snowdrop...the First to Bloom in Spring©”, HERE), and the buzzards circling overhead.

 

“Wait! what?”, you say, “Did I hear that right?”

 

Yes, you did.  You know it is spring when the buzzards return and vultures circling overhead is a sure sign that spring is here.  I first noticed the returning of the vultures way back in 1993, when my wife and I were driving southwest on the I-90, heading to Erie, PA, to the funeral of my grandmother, Florence Damon, who had died on March 29th.  The snow was still melting alongside the thruway, and neither my wife nor I had ever seen so many vultures circling overhead.  I believe that they were feeding on all the winter and road killed deer, which were then melting out of the snowbanks.

 

Turkey and Black Vultures, one of the first signs of spring

 

On the left is the range of the Turkey Vulture (yellow is the summer only range and green is the year-round range) and on the right is the year-around range of the Black vulture.

The return of both the turkey and the black vulture to the northern United States is one of the first signs of spring.  The turkey vulture, cathartes aura, which is the most common vulture in the United States and in Western New York state, where I live, is known in other parts of the United States as a turkey buzzard or simply, as a buzzard.  The other type of vulture that can occasionally be found where I live is the black vulture, or the American black vulture, coragyps atratus.  Both of these vultures are found throughout North, Central and South America, although the turkey vulture has a wider range than the black vulture.

 

Hinckley, Ohio is south of Cleveland (see the red arrow) and it is about 100 miles (161 km) south of Buffalo, from Google Maps, HERE.

In the northern hemisphere, both the turkey and black vultures will winter in the southern portions of their range and return north in the spring.  Since vultures, just like hawks, migrate during the daylight, to better catch the thermals rising off the warming land below them, they are easy to spot.  They return year after year to the same roosts, often on the same day every year!  In Hinckley, Ohio where the buzzards return like clockwork on the March 15^th, they have had a “Buzzard Sunday”, since 1957¹.  In Buffalo, New York, which is about 100 miles (161 km) north of Hinckley, Ohio, the buzzards normally return between March 21^st to March 31^st2.

 

Because vultures return around the vernal equinox, the official start of spring, and which falls on March 19^th, 20^th, or 21^st every year, they are a very good indicator that spring is on the way!

 

Turkey vultures circling overhead, photograph by the Author.

Which vulture is circling over me?

 

A turkey vulture flying, note the silvery-gray feathers of the undersides of the wings, by Kevin Szen, used with permission, it can be found HERE.

So, when you are out and about this spring and you see a large carrion eater circling over your head, how do you know if you have seen a turkey vulture, or a black vulture?  It is easy, if you see a vulture flying overhead, look to see if the underside edges its wings have silvery-gray feathers on them, if they do then it is a turkey vulture.  Black vultures only have silvery-gray feathers on their wing tips.  Also, turkey vultures, since they soar with their wings slightly raised, have wings that will resemble a shallow “V”.  And if you are close enough to see details, turkey vultures have red colored skin on their heads and a wingspan of 63 to 72 inches (160 to 183 cm); black vultures have black colored skin on their heads and are smaller than turkey vultures, with a wingspan of only 51 to 66 inches (130 to 170 centimeters). 

 

A turkey vulture flying, note the shallow “V” of the wings, photograph by the Author.

Some fun facts about vultures...

 

Here are some fun facts about vultures, for more fun facts read “The 2 Types of Vultures Found In New York! (2022)”, HERE.

 

·       * Vultures are nature’s garbage men, and they eat dead carcasses that other predators can’t eat.  By removing this rotting meat from the environment, they help stop the spread of tuberculosis, rabies, and other dangerous diseases.  Vultures have a very powerful stomach acid, which can kill all sorts of pathogens, like Black Plague, anthrax, botulism, or distemper.

 

·      *  Vultures, because they have bald, featherless heads and necks, can stay clean even after sticking their whole head into a carcass in search of tidbits. 

 

·      *  Turkey vultures are called that because their naked red heads, reminded people of wild turkeys (meleagris gallopavo).

 

·      *  Turkey vultures can use their highly refined sense of smell to detect dead and rotting meat from up to 8 miles (13 km) away.  They actually prefer meat that is fresh and will try to get to a carcass as soon as possible.  Turkey vultures only eat carrion, but black vultures like fresh meat and have been known to kill animals like skunks, opossums and young livestock.

 

·     *   To cool themselves off, turkey vultures will defecate on their legs and if they are frightened and have a full belly of rotting meat, which would make it hard for them to takeoff, they may projectile vomit towards a predator’s face to blind it.  As you can imagine this would be both very smelly and gross!

 

·      *  Turkey and black vultures are not capable of making any sounds except hisses or grunts.

 

A turkey vulture flying, note the shallow “V” of the wings, photograph by the Author.

I have been told that in western New York, a good place to view these icons of spring is at St. Peter’s R.C. church in Lewiston, New York.  In fact, I have been told that not only can you see turkey vultures on the trees and rooftop of the church, but that you can see the relatively uncommon black vulture warming themselves, by perching on the chimneys of the houses in the village.  I am planning an expedition to Lewiston, and I will let you know what I find.

 

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Getting into Wilderness Shape, a Three Month Program ©”, where we will talk about how to get into shape for the upcoming canoeing and backpacking season.

 

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at BandanaMan Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Notes

 

¹ While the first official Buzzard Sunday was in 1957, buzzards have been returning to Hinckley, Ohio on March 15^th, since well before then.  In fact, in February of 1957, Cleveland Metroparks patrolman Walter Nawalaniec told the Cleveland Press, that he had personally seen the birds return on March 15^th since 1950, or for the previous six years, and that Charlie Willard, his predecessor, had seen them return on that date for the 25 years before that!

 

From “The First Buzzard Sunday – March 17, 1957”, by The Hinckley Chamber of Commerce

 

² From The Buffalo News, March 10, 2013, “Nature Watch: Migrating birds are returning to Western New York”, by the Staff.

 

Sources

 

Bird Note; “Turkey Vultures on the Move”, March 7, 2020, [© Bird Note 2022], https://www.birdnote.org/listen/shows/turkey-vultures-move#:~:text=Unlike%20most%20of%20our%20returning,teeter%20from%20side%20to%20side, accessed April 15, 2022

 

Bird Watching HQ; “The 2 Types of Vultures Found In New York! (2022)”, [© Bird Watching HQ 2022], https://birdwatchinghq.com/vultures-in-new-york/, accessed April 15, 2022.

 

Staff; “Nature Watch: Migrating birds are returning to Western New York”, March 10, 2013, The Buffalo News, [© Copyright 2022 The Buffalo News], https://buffalonews.com/news/nature-watch-migrating-birds-are-returning-to-western-new-york/article_2fc7973a-6a5c-5a3e-9d9b-1eeb27bf4eff.html, accessed April 15, 2022

 

Szen, Kevin; “Flew the coop”, August 18, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/kevinszen/photos_by, accessed April 21, 2022

 

The Hinckley Chamber of Commerce; “The First Buzzard Sunday – March 17, 1957”, [©2012 - 2022 Hinckley Chamber of Commerce], https://www.hinckleyohchamber.com/buzzard-day/, accessed April 15, 2022.

 

Wikimedia, “Turkey Vulture C. a. septentrionalis (Canada)”, Peter K Burian, October 8, 2017, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cathartes_aura_(wings_spread)#/media/File:Eastern_Turkey_Vulture_(Canada).jpg, accessed April 15, 2022

 

Wikimedia, “Turkey Vulture Range map”, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Turkeyvulturerange.jpg, accessed April 21, 2022.

 

Wikimedia, “Approximate range of the American Black Vulture”, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AmericanBlackVultureMap.png, accessed April 21, 2022

 

 

“They Can’t Cure Dead ©”

 

 

“The Dance of Death”, 1493, by Michael Wolgemut, from the Nuremberg Chronicle of Hartmann Schedel, HERE.

Have you ever taken a calculated risk, or weighed the risks and then done something dangerous because there was less risk, long term, by doing the dangerous thing?  Sometimes playing it safe, is more dangerous in the end.  Taking calculated risks is a lot like dancing with death, sometimes necessary, always risky, and the tricky part is not paying the piper!

 

When I was a Scoutmaster, one of the members of the troop named Eli, once said that he was “...doing something stupid, carefully!”  That phrase has always stuck with me and calculated risks by their very nature fall into the category of stupid things, which need to be done carefully.

 

“...doing something stupid, carefully!”

 

Since calculated risks by their nature are dangerous actions that would normally be considered stupid, they should only be done as a last resort.  But sometimes they are necessary and if you play it safe and don’t take the risk you will end up dead anyways.

 

Here are some examples, where people came face-to-face with a potentially dangerous action and who didn’t take it and died anyways because they decided to play it “safe”.

 

To drink, or not to drink...?

 

In the summer of 1990, Paul and Karen Stryker, who were hiking in the Grand Canyon, ran out of water.  They came upon a late season creek-bed pothole, teeming with tadpoles and other life, but unfortunately, they didn’t have any way of disinfecting the water they found.  They were faced with the decision of whether to drink and refill their water bottles with the water from the tadpole pool and risk becoming sick from drinking potentially bad water or to not drink the water and risk dying of dehydration.  They decided to pass by the water hole, because the water was full of polliwogs, later Paul died of dehydration and Karen barely survived.

 

Survival expert Peter Kummerfeldt summed it up best, when he said, “a doctor can fix giardia, but he can’t fix dead”.  I have echoed this lesson of “doctors can cure a lot of things, but they can’t cure dead”, ever since I first read it in 2005¹.  When worst comes to worst, and you are facing dehydration, drinking water that is actually or potentially infected with harmful bacteria, viruses or protozoa is better than not drinking any water at all.  You most certainly will die of dehydration if you don’t have water to drink, you only MIGHT die by taking a chance and drinking undisinfected water². 

 

This might seem like common sense, however as my daughter says, “what is common sense to one person, isn’t common sense to another; common sense only exists in the context of your environment”. 

 

“A ‘turbulence’ of tadpoles”, by gailhampshire, July , 2013, from Wikimedia, HERE.

And as an aside, tadpoles need clean, pollution-free water, since they absorb it directly through their skin, and will die if the water is polluted, so seeing them in a potential water source is a good thing!  This doesn’t mean that there aren’t any harmful protozoa, bacteria, or viruses in the water, only that there aren’t any harmful pollutants dissolved in the water. 

 

And yes, drinking undisinfected water is generally considered to be doing something stupid and you should always, always, always disinfect it, when possible, but if done carefully, sometimes drinking something is better than not drinking at all.

 

Should I stay, or should I go?

 

Most times when you are “misplaced” searchers will find you within the next 72 hours.  In fact, Devon O’Neill, who wrote in Outside magazine, quoted Paul Anderson, a 42-year veteran of the National Park Service who spent 11 years as the superintendent of Denali National Park, as saying “Our stats show 85 percent of all lost people are found within the first 12 hours, and 97 percent are found within the first 24 hours”.  What do you do, however, if you are one of the unlucky 3% who aren’t found within the first 72 hours³?  Being “misplaced” isn’t the same as being “lost”.  Misplaced things are almost always found, lost things never are.  And when the rescuers stop looking for you, you go from being misplaced to being lost in a hurry.  If this happens, you will have to answer the question, “Should I stay, or should I go?”.

 

On July 21, 2013, Geraldine Largay was faced with this question when she stepped off the Appalachian Trail, near Redington Township, Maine, and could not find her way back to it.  Realizing that she did not know where she was or how to return to the trail, she set up her tent, tried to call for help with her cell phone and waited for the rescuers to find her.  Her husband reported her missing on July 24^th and a massive search began.  But searchers never found her, and eventually they stopped looking for her, even though the search remained officially open for two years. 

 

Geraldine survived for at least 26 days, before dying of starvation and exposure.  She wasn’t found until October 2015, when her remains, including her cell phone and journal, were found inside her collapsed tent.  She did everything that experts said to do, she stopped, built a camp, called for help, and waited for the rescuers to find her, but they never did.  She was faced with the question of “Should I stay, or should I go?”, but she decided to play it safe and stay put, and in the end the searchers stopped looking for her and she was never found.  If she had taken a calculated risk, found where north, south, east and west where and tried to walk out, she might have been rescued. 

 

A map of where Geraldine Largay’s remains were found, from “Hiker Who Died After Getting Lost on Appalachian Trail Left Journal for Loved Ones: 'When You Find My Body, Please Call My Husband”, by Char Adams.

Self-rescue or walking out, is generally not considered to be a smart decision, and the question “Should I stay, or should I go?” is a tough question to answer.  No matter what, you don’t want to try to walk out too soon, because if you move you are simply making it harder for the searchers to catch up with you, if they are still looking, that is.  However, if they have stopped looking, then you, you are on your own and will have to self-rescue.  For more on walking out, read “Should I Stay, or Should I Go, and the 72-Hour Rule©”, HERE. 

 

In the northeast of the United States, walking east or following rivers and waterways downstream, often will bring you to towns, villages or roads since the country was settled from east to west, along waterways.  In this case, if Geraldine had started walking east or south, or if she had even walked downhill to the nearest valley bottom from where she had set up camp, she would have crossed either the Appalachian Trail or a road and she would have been able to rescue herself.

 

In the end, sometimes to survive a wilderness emergency, you will have to weigh the risks between two bad alternatives and decide on one of them.  Remember the saying, “doctors can cure a lot of things, but they can’t cure dead”, and that sometimes taking a calculated risk is better than playing it safe.  So, hopefully you will never be faced with choosing between two bad alternatives, but if you are, take Eli’s advice and do something stupid, carefully! 

 

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “You Know It Is Spring, when the Buzzards Return©”, where we will talk about one of the sure signs of spring, buzzards circling overhead!

 

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at BandanaMan Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Notes

 

¹ Peter Kummerfeldt is a 71 year old survival expert who graduated from the Air Force Survival Instructor Training School and later was an instructor at the Basic Survival School, in Spokane, Washington, in the Arctic Survival School, in Fairbanks, Alaska, and the Jungle Survival School, in the Republic of the Philippines.  Also, Peter was the Survival Training Director for the United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, for twelve years (from Peter Kummerfeldt’s biography at “OutdoorSafe with Peter Kummerfeldt”, found HERE)

 

“Canyon Missteps, Lesson: Respect For Danger” Popular Mechanics, Volume 182, Number 8, August 2005, page 67, https://books.google.com/books?id=69IDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA67&dq=%22Canyon+Missteps%22+Popular+Mechanics,+August+2005&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjJ2_Czyo73AhUahHIEHYouCgQQ6AF6BAgCEAI#v=onepage&q=%22Canyon%20Missteps%22%20Popular%20Mechanics%2C%20August%202005&f=false, accessed April 12, 2022.

 

² For more on water disinfection and boiling, read “Water Disinfection: When is boiled, boiled enough…? ©”, HERE, “True or False, You Should Drink Water From The Spring Where Horses Drink?©”, HERE, and “Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble...The 5 Stages of Boiling©”, HERE.

 

³ Remember, sometimes it takes a while before anyone realizes you are missing, and some police departments have a policy of waiting an additional 24 to 72 hours before they begin to look for a missing person.  So, keep this in mind before you bug out.

 

⁴ There is no shame in being misplaced, because even Daniel Boone was “bewildered” once for three days (for more on this read “Being Bewildered and Bending the Map©”, HERE). 

 

Sources

 

Adams, Char; “Hiker Who Died After Getting Lost on Appalachian Trail Left Journal for Loved Ones: 'When You Find My Body, Please Call My Husband”, updated May 26, 2016, [© 2021 Meredith Corporation], https://people.com/celebrity/hiker-who-died-on-appalachian-trail-kept-journal-of-the-ordeal/, accessed September 2, 2021

 

“Canyon Missteps, Lesson: Respect For Danger” Popular Mechanics, Volume 182, Number 8, August 2005, page 67

 

Ghiglieri, Michael P., and Myers, Thomas M.; Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon, Expanded and Revised Second Edition, [Puma Press, Flagstaff, AZ, 2012] page 85 to 87.

 

O’Neill, Devon “How Backcountry Search and Rescue Works”, Outside, March 4, 2016, [© 2021 Outside Interactive, Inc.], https://www.outsideonline.com/2059616/how-backcountry-search-and-rescue-works, accessed 10/09/2018

 

Wikimedia, “A ' turbulence' of tadpoles”, by gailhampshire, July , 2013, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tadpoles#/media/File:A_'_turbulence'_of_tadpoles_-_Flickr_-_gailhampshire.jpg, accessed April 14, 2022

Weather for Woodsmen, Buys-Ballot's Law ©

 

 

Where is the center of this storm?  Photograph by the Author

The second in a series of articles on weather for woodsmen, for the previous article, go HERE – Author’s Note

 

Did you ever wonder if you could tell where the center of the storm was?  Because if you could, you would know if the storm was already past you or had yet to arrive.  In the days of sailing ships, it was vital to know where the storm center was because there was no radio, no weather forecasts, no satellites, etc., so if you didn’t know where the low-pressure storm center was, you wouldn’t know what weather was coming.  Oh, and remember, in the temperate latitudes of both the southern and northern hemisphere most of the weather travels from west to east, so if the storm center is west of you, then it is on its way!

 

Well, here is good news, you can tell where the center of both the high-pressure and the low-pressure storm is by the direction of the wind, so let’s talk about the how and the why.

 

The highs and lows of weather...

 

An excerpt from Almanac and Weather Forecaster, by Eric Sloane, page 40.

The weather that surrounds us is caused by atmospheric convection currents, the Coriolis effect, and areas of high and low-pressure air.  Low-pressure areas are called “depressions” and are marked on a weather map, or synoptic chart, as a “L”, and high-pressure areas are marked on weather maps as a “H”.  High pressure air is descending air that is cold and dry and generally brings clear skies.  Low pressure air is rising warm air that is moisture laden, saturated, and generally brings rain or snow. 

 

High and low-pressure systems move from the west to the east in in the temperate latitudes, which are between 30^o and 60^o north or south latitudes, of both the northern and southern hemispheres.  The temperate latitudes include, in the northern hemisphere, all of Europe, Central Asia, and North America below the arctic, and in the southern hemisphere they include the southern portion of South America and the southern tip of Africa.

 

Excerpts from Farm and Garden Rule-Book, by L. H. Bailey, page 5 and 6.

When the atmospheric convection currents push a bulge of warmer air into an area of colder air, a storm is born.  Since the warm air is less dense than the colder air around it, it creates a pocket of low-pressure air that the surrounding high-pressure air tries to fill.  The Coriolis effect causes the in-rushing winds to begin to swirl, counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere.

 

An excerpt from Farm and Garden Rule-Book, by L. H. Bailey, page 9.

Also, a moving low-pressure frontal system pushes air ahead of it creating a “snowplow ridge” or, “bow-wave” of high-pressure air, that initially will bring a period of good, clear weather ahead of the oncoming storm¹.

 

Also, remember, winds are named for the direction that they are blowing from, not from where they are blowing to. 

 

Since the winds swirling into a low-pressure area in the northern hemisphere circle in a counterclockwise pattern, the winds from a storm as it approaches you will blow first from the northwest and west, then from the southwest and south and then as the center of the storm has passed to the east of you, the wind will blow from the northeast, the east and lastly from north and northwest.

 

An excerpt from Land Safety and Survival: Volume 3, page 269, which can be purchased HERE, showing the counter-clockwise wind pattern surrounding a low-pressure area and the clockwise wind directions around a high-pressure area in the northern hemisphere.

This is reversed in the southern hemisphere because the winds rushing into fill a low-pressure zone to circle in a clockwise pattern, so as a storm approaches you from the west the winds will first blow from the north east, north and northwest and after the center of the storm has passed to the east of you the winds will blow from the west, southwest and later the south.

 

An excerpt from Land Safety and Survival: Volume 3, page 269, which has been modified by the Author, to show the clockwise wind pattern surrounding a low-pressure area and the counterclockwise wind directions around a high-pressure area in the southern hemisphere.

Buys-Ballot’s Law...

 

A portrait of Christophorus Henricus Diedericus Buys Ballot (1817-1890), from Wikimedia, HERE.

Christophorus Henricus Diedericus Buys Ballot was born in 1817 and died in 1890.  He was a Dutch meteorologist who, in 1857, was the first person to provide empirical data to support a phenomenon that had been first noted by meteorologists J. H. Coffin and W. Ferrel in 1856.  Buys-Ballot’s law is a consequence of Ferrel’s Law and is more of a rule for prediction.  In November 1857, in Comptes rendus², Buys Ballot wrote “Stand with your back to the wind; the low-pressure area will be on your left-hand”.  This rule is generally true in the higher latitudes of the northern and southern hemispheres, although it is reversed in the southern hemisphere.

 

So where is the storm?

 

The interesting thing about Buys-Ballot’s Law is that there are two variants, one where you face the wind and one where you stand with you back to the wind.  They both supply the same information and either can be used, to tell you where the center of a storm is as it nears you. 

 

An excerpt from American Practical Navigator: An Epitome of Navigation, by Nathaniel Bowditch, page 916.

So, in the northern hemisphere, if you want to find out where the center of the high-pressure area is or the center of the low-pressure storm is, face into the wind and extend your arms straight out from your sides, the low-pressure center of the storm will be a somewhat behind the direction that your right arm is pointing towards and the center of the high pressure area is little in front of your left arm.

 

An excerpt from Land Safety and Survival: Volume 3, page 270, which can be purchased HERE, which shows the counterclockwise wind pattern surrounding a low-pressure area in the northern hemisphere. 

In the southern hemisphere everything is reversed, and if you want to find out where the center of the high-pressure area is or the center of the low-pressure storm is, just like before, face into the wind and extend your arms straight out from your sides, the low-pressure center of the storm will be in the a little behind the direction that your left arm is pointing towards and the center of the high pressure area is somewhat in front of your right arm.

 

An excerpt from Land Safety and Survival: Volume 3, page 270, which has been reversed by the Author to show the clockwise wind pattern surrounding a low-pressure area in the southern hemisphere.

So now that you know how to tell where the highs and lows and the center a storm is, you will be better able to predict if weather is heading toward you or away from you.

 

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “They Can’t Cure Dead ©”, where we will talk weighing the risks, taking calculated risks and Eli’s philosophy of “...doing something stupid, carefully”!

 

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at BandanaMan Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Notes

 

¹ From “Red Sky At Night...”, by Donald Johnson and Jean Smith, page 32-33

 

² The entire entry for Buys-Ballot’s law in the 1911 The Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 4, BISHĀRĪN to CALGARY, can be found HERE.

 reads as follows:

“BUYS BALLOT’S LAW, in meteorology, the name given to a law which may be expressed as follows: - “Stand with your back to the wind; the low-pressure area will be on your left-hand.” This rule, the truth of which was first recognized by the American meteorologists J. H. Coffin and W. Ferrel, is a direct consequence of Ferrel’s Law (q.v.). The law takes its name from C. H. D. Buys Ballot, a Dutch meteorologist, who published it in the Comptes rendus, November 1857.”

 

 

Sources

 

Alaska Marine Safety Education Association staff: Allen, Marian; Campbell, Steven ; Dzugan, Jerry; Falvey, Dan; Jones, Michael; McElrath, Rick and Newell, Shawn; Land Safety and Survival: Volume 3, [University of Alaska Sea Grant, Fairbanks, Alaska, SG-ED-38, 2002], https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/34660/noaa_34660_DS1.pdf, accessed April 4, 2022

 

Bailey, L. H.; Farm and Garden Rule-Book, [The Macmillan Company, New York, New York; 1911], https://books.google.com/books?id=6jgaAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Farm+and+Garden+Rule+Book&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-46Xs5fv2AhUeg3IEHauWAvsQ6AF6BAgFEAI#v=onepage&q=Farm%20and%20Garden%20Rule%20Book&f=false, accessed April 4, 2022

 

Bowditch, Nathaniel, LL.D.; American Practical Navigator: An Epitome of Navigation, Volume 1, 1984 Edition, [Defense Mapping Agency Hydrographic/Topographic Center, DMA Stock No. NVPUB9V1], https://books.google.com/books?id=_W57QsbLxIAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22aerology+for+pilots%22+%22In+the+Northern+Hemisphere,+if+you+turn+your+back+to+the+wind,+the+low+pressure+center+will+be+to+your+left+%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjg947EtoT3AhVioHIEHZzoDpsQ6AF6BAgCEAI#v=onepage&q&f=false, accessed April 8, 2022

 

Chestofbook.com, The Encyclopædia Britannica, “Buys Ballots Law”, [© 2007-2021 StasoSphere.com], https://chestofbooks.com/reference/Encyclopedia-Britannica-2/Buys-Ballots-Law.html, accessed April 6, 2022

 

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