Prevailing Wind Reversal

I have written about this previously here and have noticed it a number of times. I live within sight of a really tall smokestack. I don't often follow the weather because I can see what it is going to be just by looking at this smokestack.

Obviously if the wind is from the north it is going to get colder but warmer if the wind is from the south. The prevailing wind where I live in from the west. A west wind means a likely change in the weather, but probably without a great change in temperature.

It is rare that the wind is from the east, because that would be a reversal of the prevailing wind. What I have noticed, on a number of occasions, is that whenever there is a major storm system in the eastern United States, it tends to reverse the prevailing wind, even though it may be calm here.

An east wind here is sometimes the result of remnants of a hurricane along America's east coast. During Hurricane Sandy, which flooded the subway of New York City in 2012, there were powerful winds from the east here.