[Melon88]

Q Why can you hear sounds better when the wind is blowing towards you than when it is blowing away from you?

:confused:

[Perito]

The only thing I can think of is the Doppler effect. When the wind is moving toward you, the pitch of the sound is increased because of the movement of air. When the wind is moving away from you, the pitch of the sound decreases. Until we get old, we tend to hear higher pitches a little more clearly.

There has to be another reason than this, however.

[sarnian]

Why can you hear sounds better when the wind is blowing towards you than when it is blowing away from you?

But is that thesis correct? Is the direction of the sound not relevant also (and I do not mean the doppler effect as Perito already explained).

May be the following is here involved. As a frequent balloonist I note that from above at approx. 100 meters you can easily hear people conversing to each other on the ground. But they can not hear you when you call them from above. Seems to be caused by the level of the background noise.

Another cause may be that the wind not only changes the pitch of the sound (doppler), but also has effect on the carrying power of sound over longer distances.