Intertropical Convergence Zone of human errors which ultimately doomed the flight. Most aircraft flying these routes are able to avoid the larger convective cells without incident. Intertropical Convergence Zone The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), known by sailors as the doldrums or the calms, is the area encircling Earth near the Equator, where the northeast and southeast trade winds converge. The ITCZ was originally identified from the 1920s to the 1940s as the "Intertropical Front" ("ITF"), but after the recognition in the 1940s and the 1950s of the significance of wind field convergence in tropical weather production, the term "ITCZ" was then applied. When
South Atlantic Convergence Zone while easterly wind anomalies indicate breaks of activity along the SACZ. The feature is also strongest with negative anomalies in the sea surface temperature pattern lie over the southern Atlantic Ocean, while opposite conditions prevail across the northern Atlantic Ocean. South Atlantic Convergence Zone The South Atlantic convergence zone, or SACZ, is an elongated axis of clouds, precipitation, and convergent winds oriented in a northwest-southeast manner across southeast Brazil into the southwest Atlantic Ocean. By definition, the feature is a monsoon trough. It is strongest in the warm season. Thunderstorm activity along the feature magnifies over three or more days