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Wind and noise

How comes that, when the wind comes from the railway, I can hear the trains much better. I understand that it should reduce the effective distance of the railway, but the wind is usually not over 50 km/h, very small compared to the speed of sound (1200 km/h), so the effect should be tiny.

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  • Asked by miguel2
  • on 2010-06-07 21:15:16
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Categories: Domestic Science.

Tags: sound, speedofsound, speed, noise, wind.

 

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Jon-Richfield says:

It has very little to do with the relative speeds of sound and wind. Rather, it has to do with the refraction of sound, bending it downwards when you shout downwind, and upwards when you shout upwind. Sound that goes upwards is prone to pass over the heads of the listeners, whereas sound bending downwards tends to reach them rather well. The reason for the refraction is that air moving over the ground gets slowed down, and the closer it is to the ground, the more it is slowed. Sound passing through air gets slowed down or speeded up by the same speed as the air movement, and when the airspeed is not constant across the wavefront of the sound, the path of the wavefront bends in the direction of the lowest speed, much as a vehicle with its wheels in sand on one side and on firm ground on the other side, will turn towards the sand. The refraction of light follows a very similar principles, which is the explanation for mirages and similar phenomena.

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Tags: sound, speedofsound, speed, noise, wind.

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posted on 2010-06-08 19:33:38 | Report abuse


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