The stagnation point flow corresponds to a linear dependence on the coordinates, that can be described in the Cartesian coordinates  with velocity components  as follows
where  are constants referred as the strain rates; these constants are not completely arbitrary since the continuity equation requires , that is to say, only two of the three constants are independent. We shall assume  so that flow is towards the stagnation point in the  direction and away from the stagnation point in the  direction. Without loss of generality, one can assume that . The flow field can be categorized into different types based on a single parameter