Powerful Winds Push Planes to More Than 800mph

Amid a storm in the Northeast this weekend, winds over the Mid-Atlantic region helped to propel airplanes to more than 800mph ground speed on Saturday. The National Weather Service office serving the Washington-Baltimore area said wind speed in the jet stream at cruising altitude of about 35,000 feet was 265mph, the second-highest ever measured since records started being kept in the 1950s, the Washington Post reports. The resulting tailwind led to one Virgin Atlantic flight landing 45 minutes early; one American Airlines flight hit 840mph. The Post explains more of the science thusly:

• While both flights' top speeds surpassed the speed of sound, "the aircraft did not break the sound barrier. Although its ground speed—a measure that combines the plane's actual speed and the additional push from the wind—was greater than the speed of sound, it was still moving through the surrounding air at its ordinary cruise speed. It just so happened that the surrounding air was moving unusually fast."

(More jet stream stories.)