I never understood why the Gulf Stream heats Europe but not the us east coast. It passes by there first. It seems like it would only get colder after that.
>I never understood why the Gulf Stream heats Europe but not the us east coast.
Who said it doesn't? It absolutely does, that's one of the reason why the east coast is warmer than equivalent (as of latitude) areas in Europe are (plus other effects on the weather there).
It does heat the east coast of the U.S, but not nearly as much as Northern Europe.
The main complication is that prevailing weather tends to move west-to-east (because of the Coriolis force at typical U.S. latitudes), which means the east coast gets more continental air masses from Canada and the Plains than oceanic air masses. But compare Boston to Chicago, NYC to Kansas, or Washington D.C. to Colorado. All of the former are at higher latitudes, but tend to have milder temperatures than the latter. (Some of this is due to the moderating effect of water in general, but winters in coastal Boston are generally milder than in Chicago despite the latter also being on water and at a lower latitude.)
