When do land breezes typically occur?

Land breezes typically occur at night. This phenomenon is rooted in the temperature differences between land and water. During the daytime, the sun heats both land and water, but land heats up more quickly and cools down more quickly than the water does. As the sun sets and nighttime approaches, the land cools rapidly while the water retains heat for a longer period.

As a result, the air over the land becomes cooler and denser than the air over the nearby water body. This creates a pressure difference that causes the cooler, denser air from the land to move towards the water, often referred to as a land breeze. This process is opposite to the sea breeze, which occurs during the day when the land heats up faster than the water, causing the warmer air over the land to rise and the cooler air from the sea to move in.

Understanding the dynamics of land and water temperature variations is crucial in meteorology, particularly for predicting local wind patterns.