[stack]

No that’s not the case. It is zero at the poles. If you drop a penny from a building on the North Pole, there will be zero coriolis effect. A penny dropped at the equator will have maximal deflection.

Somewhere one of us has confused terms. Literally every article I can find states the Coriolis effect is strongest at the poles and 0 at the equator.

They are only considering the non vertical effects. At the equator, the coriolis term points upward! It is a vector cross product.

When you're referring to vertical effects are you referring to the Eötvös effect?  My understanding is the vertical component of Coriolis is Eötvös. I think more commonly when we refer to the Coriolis effect we're mostly talking about the lateral/horizontal component.

[QED]

No I’m not, but this is easily confusing, and I’ve heard folks talk about them like they’re the same. Eotvos is tied to the centrifugal force. You can have Eotvos without coriolis.

Think of it this way:

a) you shoot a projectile at some angle, the Earth turns beneath it, so it looks like a deflection happened - cause you turn with the Earth.

b) I drop a penny above you, the Earth turns, so it looks like the penny doesn’t fall straight down to you. It is also deflected.

Scenario a) would happen at the poles but not at the equator (if you shot it east or west on there equator.

Scenario a) would happen if you shot it north or south from the equator.

Scenario b) would happen if you dropped it at the equator, but would not happen if you dropped it at the poles.

The fault for this confusion is mine. I should know better than to assume everyone can read my mind. The context for the coriolis was its vertical properties, since somehow this was being proposed as affecting the dome and earth surface similarly. I forget that most folks Are exposed to the lateral effects by way of examples.