Final answer:
Winds in the United States typically blow from the west to the east, with the strongest and most reliable winds found in the plains states, due to global wind patterns and the Earth's rotation.
Step-by-step explanation:
In the United States, the prevailing winds — the direction in which the wind most often blows — are from the west to the east due to the rotation of the Earth and the resultant global wind patterns. These are also known as the prevailing westerlies. Information provided by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) describes the wind velocity at a height of 80 meters showing that the plains states experience stronger winds, making them prime locations for wind energy development. Moreover, wind capacity factors, which measure how reliable the wind is, are highest in places like Kansas, within the plains states region. The force of these winds is strong enough to influence weather patterns and can have significant effects, such as the Bernoulli effect on structures during particularly strong winds, such as the jet stream descent in Boulder, Colorado that occurs every few years.