A great air mass can lie stagnant far to the north of us for days and weeks. It grows colder and colder and finally starts moving south, sounds like shrill trumpets marking its journey. As it travels it reacts to the force caused by the earth rotating on its axis, and then the moving air mass begins to rotate within itself in a clockwise direction. The winds, born in the air mass, blow around their stern parent, and also blow in all directions. When great air masses, one cold and dry, the other warm and moisture-laden, meet, a storm is born.
Rain is also an instrument which records the music of the wind.
The song of the wind depends upon the wind's intensity. This is measured in prosaic terms of miles per hour and is described by the weather man with a series of familiar terms. The wind hums, whistles, sings or shouts as it goes about its business of planting seed, raising dust clouds, pushing storms hither and yon as the seasons change. There is the soft murmur in the wind of spring, containing idle gossip about flowers, bees, birds and gentle things. The wind of summer, reacting to the powerhouse we call the sun, is fitful and variable in its gypsy travels, and in its music reflects its temperamental moods.