What is the name of the wind that blows from land toward the sea at night?
Answer
Land breeze
Answer
Land breeze
The wind that blows from land toward the sea at night is called a land breeze.
Land and water heat and cool at different rates. After sunset, land usually loses heat faster than the adjacent sea. The air above the land therefore becomes cooler and denser, creating relatively higher surface pressure. Air flows outward from land toward the warmer water, producing a land breeze.
The daytime counterpart is the sea breeze. During the day, land warms faster than water, so air rises over the warmer land and cooler air moves inland from the sea. Together, these circulations form a daily coastal wind cycle when larger-scale weather is weak.
Land breezes are often weaker than sea breezes because the nighttime temperature contrast is commonly smaller. Their strength also depends on coastline shape, terrain, cloud cover, and the background wind. A land breeze is not the same as a katabatic wind, although cooling air flowing downhill can contribute to local nighttime breezes.
Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026