Machweo Sea
The Machweo Sea covers about 4% of Aurora's surface, or about 5.75% of its non-continental water area. Its surface is about 21,127,000 km2. The Machweo is about the seventh largest of Aurora's seas and oceans - "about", because the Jyaltic, Machweo, and Joharan are of similar size, depending on which bays and straits one defines as part of each.
Its maximum measured depth is more than 3km, off southeastern Xianbia. Parts of the strait between southern Xianbia and Kijana Banoga reach depths greater than 2.5 km, while the strait between northern Xianbia and Kijana Hian is at most some 300 m deep. Still, that northern passage is deep enough to permit exchange of water with the Patronic both by surface currents and at least two deeper currents. The continental shelf off of the Kijanas is typically 200-300 km wide, whereas that off the Xianbian coast is much narrower. Catai's and (northern) Kantonia's Machweo continental shelf ranges from 60 to 120 km wide, but the Theodinnes coast has more like a 20 to 40 km shelf, and that only if you pick the common definition of 200m or 300m as being "shelf". Really, the Theodinnes' Machweo coast is all slope and no shelf.
As the equator cuts the Machweo right in two, its current patterns are more restricted than those of wide-open one-hemisphere oceans such as the Karic. Winds across the Machweo likewise vary greatly season to season; indeed from week to week. Both northern and southern ends are subject to strong tropical cyclone cycles. the southern season is roughly December to June. The northern some years is May to October, but other years the general Xianbian High is over the Machweo (other years that system hangs out over the mid-Patronic Ocean. While these storms do not have the length of track of, say, Karic or South Cidalian storms, it is not the length of run but rather the heat of the sea that lends strength to the cyclones. The Machweo has some inflow and outflow at north and south, but is pent-up enough for its surface to average a good deal warmer than the Cidalian storm latitudes. Some of the most vicious storms on record have pummeled the coasts of Theodinnes and Kantonia. Those that hook into the Bahia Plata have at times driven horrific tidal surges into the Kantonis Gulf causing great loss of life.
Cyclones aside, the variety of wind and current across the Machweo eased colonization of Xianbia from Kijana Hian, repeatedly throughout history. Even modest coastal boats early in the age of sail were betimes swept across its expanse, with the trip short enough that many such accidental explorers survived. Neither Kijana Hian nor Xianbia have been as strongly affected by Aurora's climate swings as some continents, hence there has been less impetus for mass migration for survival's sake. Instead, trade and conquest have driven travel in both directions.
