| At night, the land cools off faster than the ocean due to differences in
their heat capacity, which forces the dying of the daytime sea breeze.
If the land cools below that of the adjacent sea surface temperature,
the pressure over the water will be lower than that of the land,
setting up a land breeze as long as the environmental surface wind
pattern is not strong enough to oppose it. If there is sufficient
moisture and instability available, the land breeze can cause showers or
even thunderstorms, over the water. Overnight thunderstorm development
offshore due to the land breeze can be a good predictor for the activity
on land the following day, as long as there are no expected changes to
the weather pattern over the following 12–24 hours. This is mainly
because the strength of the land breeze is weaker than the sea breeze. The land breeze will die once the land warms up again the next morning. |
