Have you ever jumped into a body of water in Skyrim and discovered that it had a "flow" to it? Most of the deeper ones do, and even some of the smaller streams seem to have it as well.

Now I'm not talking about the direction that the water is supposed to be running, all the rivers have a perceived direction like this. I'm talking about the force that actually pushes you through the water.

Some of them are lined up. Others, though, seem to push you sideways. I've never actually added it all up, but it seems possible to me that the force is actually all moving in the same direction. Has anyone else bothered to measure this or pay attention to it? Could this be an ad-hok compass in Skyrim? It seems to me that all the flowing waters might be headed North, but I can't be sure.
(I have my compass and map disabled).

Any thoughts on this? I know that some of the rivers flow sideways and some don't, the question is "Do they all flow in the same direction" or not.
Thanks!

Pretty sure they head in a northern direction. I followed a river near Whiterun and ended up by Solitude.

Part of my survival hunter RP in fast moving rivers and such.

Hmmm... that's not what I meant. I'm having a hard time explaining the distinction here:
On the one hand, there's the Lore that rivers generally run towards the north, following this meandering, river-like path. (River "run")

On the other, there's the game engine mechanic that actually applies a little force or nudge to the player to push them along in the water. (River "flow")

Does that make more sense? The rivers "run" all over the place, but the main one empties out by Solitude in the North. Got that.
However, they don't always "flow" right. Some of them seem to flow directly towards their banks, or sideways. Anyone else noticed this? Maybe this is actually a glitch of my game and that's why I can't explain it right?

Only time I've had diagonal flow was near the waterfall by Goldenglow, everywhere else it had straight forward flow.

Skyrim water is a fail, as a person who likes to dispose of corpses I know exactly what you mean.

I think the flowing was just poorly done. I've found that most flowing water flows into a bank too (as thats where most of the bodies I drop in the rivers end up).

I think the problem is that the river flow is probably linked to a cell. That is, all flow in one cell flows in the same direction. I've not tried experimenting all over the place, but in any area at least, all the flow goes the same way, no matter which way the river physically meanders. So if you swam down a river as it went through a U-turn, the flow would (say) start behind you (say), then slowly swing around until it was coming from the front. But the flow force would always point int he same direction on a compass. The other possibility is that all flow across the whole map moves in the same direction. Now I feel the need to check every last river and lake...

Having spent some time white water rafting, there are Eddies and Ebbs and Flows in every river. I have seen parts of a river that flow backwards against the flow of the rest of the water. I have seen whirlpools and places where a raft can get stuck and not go anywhere unless some serious paddling is applied, even though it is not on a rock, but because the water is flowing the way that it does. It is natural that not all water is flowing in the same direction in a river. What surprises me is they have the fluid dynamics that granular and defined.

They are nice fast shortcuts that I like to use from time to time.