Wind is moving air caused by difference in temperature and air pressure. Winds blow from high to low pressure areas. The equator is a low pressure area and the poles are high pressure areas. Due to the west-east rotation of the earth, winds are deflected to the right of their direction of travel in the northern hemisphere and the left in the southern hemisphere. This is known as the Coriolis effect, after its discoverer, Gaspard Coriolis (1792-1843), a French mathematician.