Does proximity to the equator (northern vs southern hemisphere) effect the swirl direction of toilet flushes?

Just to add to other answers, No. I think the coriolis force (an imaginary force BTW) has an acceleration of 0.002 m/s/s on an object travelling at 20m/s at mid latitudes. If you did leave a (perfectly shaped) sink full of water for long enough (weeks) and carefully pulled the plug it would always spin the same way depending on the hemisphere - but it would require a carfefully controlled experiment!!! In ordinary circumstances the acceleration is not great enough to have a significant impact.
<EDIT> The coriolis force is called an imaginary force because, if viewed from an outside observer, we would just see the normal Newtonian forces acting. It is because we are observing a phenomenon whilst standing on a spinning globe that we introduce the concept of a coriolis force to describe it. Take the plane flying towards the north pole - in the plane we fly North but the earth rotates underneath us as we do so, tracing a curved path! That is the concept of the coriolis force, although NO force has actually been imparted to us. To the outside observer it is easy to see that we are flying north but the earth is spinning underneath us. Essentially we use the concept to calibrate (I guess!) what we observe to our point of reference. <END EDIT>

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Thanks, for the clarification.
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by Glenn Blaylock on December 28th, 2005

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Does proximity to the equator (northern vs southern hemisphere) effect the swirl direction of toilet flushes?

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