>surface level weather still comes predominately from the East in the Northern Hemisphere

this is startling news to me, having lived in the Upper Midwest for 64 years and seeing nearly all of our weather fronts roll in from the west.

"Fronts are guided by winds aloft, but they normally move at lesser speeds. In the northern hemisphere, they usually travel from some west to east direction (even though they can move in a more north-south direction as well). Movement is due to the pressure gradient force (horizontal differences in atmospheric pressure) and the Coriolis effect, caused by the earth spinning about its axis. Frontal zones can be contorted by geographic features like mountains and large bodies of water." -wikipedia

prevailing westerlies