Ever crack your car window and feel that painful thumping sound? Scientists call it "buffeting", and Meteorologist Tony Laubach explores the quirky physics behind the booming noise - with a little help from his own storm chase experience.

Pennsylvania

Car window buffeting, also known as booming, is the loud, thumping pressure sensation experienced when a vehicle window is partially open. This effect is not just wind noise but is caused by resonance, similar to how musical instruments amplify sound. The phenomenon occurs as air rushes past the open window, creating pressure pulses that resonate inside the car, with the intensity depending on vehicle speed and the formation of turbulent air eddies.

A simple solution to reduce buffeting is to open another window slightly, which helps balance the pressure and diminish the noise. Features like sunroof lips are designed to disrupt turbulence, but rapid pressure changes, such as those caused by passing large trucks, can sometimes lead to extreme outcomes like sunroof damage. Understanding the physics behind buffeting can help drivers manage the discomfort and protect their vehicles.

The science behind car window buffeting

Sometimes when you're lost, you'll be found. In the automotive industry, they call this phenomenon buffeting or booming. It's the name for that booming pressure that hits your ears when you roll down a window, and it's not just wind noise. Buffeting was originally discovered when they were looking at the sunroofs. Also, this could happen when you cracked open a window. So, side window buffeting you often hear in the literature, especially the rear side windows. What's really happening, you've built a rolling wind instrument. When air rushes past that open window, pressure pulses in and out like your car's playing its own drum solo. This causes what we call resonance. So, it's the same sort of phenomenon like when you play a violin or a guitar and the body helps amplify the noise. The faster those swirls of air zip by, the quicker that thumping beat. The phenomenon depends a lot on the speed because that is going to control how quickly those little turbulent eddies that form over the outside of the car pass from the front of your open window to the back of the open window. And when your ears can't take another note, there is an easy quick fix. Just to open another window somewhere in the car a little slit, usually the problem goes away. Those little lips on sunroofs aren't just for looks. They break up turbulence, but sometimes the pressure can literally blow the roof off. That truck just took out our sunroof. On a storm chase in 2011, the rapid pressure change of a passing semi was enough to explode our sunroof. A little bit of a related phenomenon just in the sense that your big semi truck has, you know, it's moving a lot of air around it. At the front head of the truck, there will be a high positive pressure, and that's going to quickly change as you get towards the rear of the truck to a high negative pressure. So, the next time your window starts thumping like it's dropping the bass, remember, it's not your playlist, it's physics jamming along for the ride. For AccuWeather, I'm meteorologist Tony Laubach.

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