GULF STREAM

(Geography) The warm ocean current of the North Atlantic. It originates in the westward equatorial current caused by the trade winds, but is deflected northward by the coast of South America into the Gulf of Mexico; issuing thence, it follows approximately the coast of North America to the island of Nantucket, where it is deflected more to the eastward. Its influence is felt as far as Norway. Where it issues from the Gulf of Mexico, its velocity is more than four miles per hour, but in much of the northern part of the Atlantic its velocity is only 10 to 15 miles per day.