Lesson 4 - Precipitation Flashcards
Sometimes called mist and consists of tiny liquid water droplets
Drizzle
Consists of liquid water drops mostly larger than 0.5mm
Rain
The discharge of water from the atmosphere
Precipitation
4 types of precipitation
Convective
Cyclonic
Orographic
Cyclones, tropical depressions or hurricanes
due to intense heating of air at the ground which leads to expansion and vertical rise of air
Convective Precipitation
associated with the movement of large air masses from high pressure region to low pressure region as in the case of warm or cold fronts
Cyclonic precipitation or Frontal precipitation
It is a boundary between two regions of air that have different meteorological properties such as temperature and humidity
Front
Formed in the warm air advancing upward over a colder air mass.
Warm front precipitation
Showery nature and is formed in the warm air forced upward by an advancing mass of cold air
Cold-front precipitation
due to mechanical lofting of moist air masses over mountain ranges
Orographic Precipitation
active depressions which gain energy while moving over warm ocean water and dissipate energy while moving overland
Cyclones, tropical depressions or hurricanes
Characterized by cumulonimbus clouds that can produce heavy rains, thunder, lightning and occasionally hail.
Thunderstorms
Are intense forms of tropical cyclones, cyclonic storms that form over tropical oceans, between 5 and 20 degrees latitude
Hurricanes
Types of precipitation gages
Standard Rain Gage Weighing Gage Tipping-bucket Float-type Radar and Satellite
if the gages are uniformly distributed and individual variations are not far from the mean rainfall
Station Average Method
