Meteorology 2 Flashcards
Clouds
- Most visible means of determining weather conditions
- Form when saturation is reached, causing water vapour to condense into small droplets or crystals
High Clouds (“Cirro-“ )
- Bases at and above 20,000’ ASL (up to around 45,000’)
- Average is about 25,000’
- Composed of ice crystals
- Have little effect on flying
Middle Clouds (“Alto-“ )
- Bases between 6,500’ and 20,000’ ASL
- Composed of ice crystals and water droplets most of which are super-cooled
Low Clouds
- Bases located between surface and 6,500 ASL
- Composed of water droplets which may be super-cooled or ice crystals
Clouds of Vertical Development “Cumul-“
Bases usually below 6,500’ ASL, extending potentially to the tropopause
Cumulus Clouds
- Form in rising air
- Indicate unstable air
- “-cumulus”
Stratus Clouds
- Form in horizontal layers
- Layer of moist air is cooled below its saturation point
- “-stratus”
Nimbus Clouds
- Precipitation is Falling
- “-nimbus” or “nimbo-“
High Clouds Main Types
- Cirrus (CI)
- Cirrostratus (CS)
- Cirrocumulus (CC)
Middle Clouds Main Types
- Altostratus (AS)
- Altocumulus (AC)
Middle Clouds Secondary Types
Altocumulus Castellanus (ACC)
Low Clouds Main Types
- Stratus (ST)
- Nimbostratus (NS)
- Cumulus (CU)
- Stratocumulus (SC)
Low Clouds Secondary Types
- Stratus Fractus (SF)
- Cumulus Fractus (CF)
Clouds of Vertical Development Main Types
- Cumulus (CU)
- Cumulonimbus (CB)
- Towering Cumulus (TCU)
Cirrus (CI)
- Very High, up to 45,000’
- Thin, wispy, feathery appearance
- Called cats’ whiskers or mares’ tails
- No significant icing
- May be turbulent in dense, banded cirrus
Cirrocumulus (CC)
- Take the form of individual puffs
- Often form in patchy groups with spaces between the individual members
- Thin cloud layer
- Cotton or flake-like
- May contain highly super-cooled water droplets resulting in some turbulence and icing
Cirrostratus (CS)
- Continuous appearance than other high altitude clouds
- Typically so thin that the sun/moon can be seen through them
- Indicates and approaching warm front or occlusion
- Little if any icing, no turbulence, restricted visibility
Altocumulus (AC)
- Series of patches of rounded cotton-ball clouds
- Formed in unstable mid-level air masses
- Usually do not indicate any weather development
- Small amounts of icing, some turbulence
Altocumulus Castellanus (ACC)
- Altocumulus with a turreted appearance
- Indicates increased instability, turbulence, and possible showers
- Might develop into cumulonimbus
- Unstable air, rough turbulence with some icing
Altostratus (AS)
- Thick grey cloud covering large areas of the sky
- Indicates the approach of a warm front
- Light rain or snow could fall from the clouds
- Moderate amounts of icing, little to no turbulence, restricted sunlight
Lenticular
- Lens-shaped clouds
- Associated with strong winds blowing over mountainous areas
- Mountains cause a pattern of up and down waves
- Form in the wave capping a prominent mountain peak, or in the wave crests in the lee of the mountain
- It is not uncommon to have several layers of lenticular clouds stacked on top of each other
- very strong turbulence
Stratus (ST)
- Fairly uniform light to dark grey appearance
- Typically blankets large areas of the sky
- Bases usually found near the ground to around 6,500 feet
- A stratus cloud with its base extending to the ground is fog
- Drizzle is likely
- Little or no turbulence
- Hazardous icing if temps are near or below freezing
- Visibility can be greatly reduced when associated with fog or precipitation
Stratus Fractus (SF)
- Small, thin, unorganized tatters of a stratus layer that typically condense in the moisture beneath nimbostratus or cumulonimbus clouds
- Pilots often refer to these clouds as “scud”
- Bases usually found near the ground to around 6,500’
Stratocumulus (SC)
- Irregular masses of cumulus clouds merged together with little or no spacing between the clouds
- May be in layers or patches
- Bases of these clouds are usually found near the ground to around 6,500’
- Common in high pressure areas
- Some turbulence, possible icing at subfreezing temps, ceiling and visibility better than with low stratus clouds
Nimbostratus (NS)
- Often called rain clouds
- Uniform dark grey appearance
- Bottoms are typically blurred and indistinct due to falling rain or snow
- Precipitation is continuous
- Low bases, but may have considerable vertical development bringing the tops into the middle level range
- Associated with warm fronts
- Very little turbulence, serious icing problems if temps are near or below freezing
Cumulus (CU)
- Thick, rounded, lumpy, cotton balls
- Bases are normally flat
- Form during the day, disappear at night
- Flight is usually bumpy near cumulus
- Called Cumulus Fractus (CF) when the appear ragged
- Shallow layer of unstable air will give some turbulence, but no significant icing
Cumulus Fractus (CF)
Small, thin, unorganized puffs
- Dissipating cumulus clouds often dissolve into cumulus fractus
- Sometimes referred to as scud by pilots, although more applied to stratus fractus
- Bases usually found from near the ground to around 6500’
Towering Cumulus (TCU)
- Also called Cumulus Congestus
- Unstable air causes strong vertical convection currents
- Can cause cumulus cloud tops to grow and billow upward beyond the range of the low clouds into the middle cloud altitudes
- Early stage of thunderstorm
- Very strong turbulence with rain showers, some clear icing above freezing level
Cumulonimbus (CB)
- Thunderstorm
- Extend well above freezing level
- Top forms shape of anvil
- Violent vertical currents in and near the cloud
- Hail is within the cloud and could fall beneath it or outside of it
- Line of CB’s indicate a cold front
- CB’s could be embedded in stratus layers
- Should be avoided
- Unstable air throughout, violent turbulence, strong possibility of icing
Cumulus Mammatus
- Cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud
- Often associated with the anvil cloud that extends from a cumulonimbus
- When occurring in cumulonimbus, indicate a particularly strong storm
Calculating Cloud Base
- For altitude, spread divided by 2.5 then multiplied by 1000
- Can also take temp spread and multiply by 400
- For temperature, take surface temp minus 2 degrees per 1000’
Fog
- Ground Level Cloud
- Large impact on aviation
- Can sometimes see through fog from above
- Visibility usually less than 5/8 SM
- Slant Range Visibility, Prevailing visibility, Vertical visibility, Tower visibility
Fog Composition
- Small water droplets
- Ice crystals
- Super-cooled water droplets
- Combination thereof
Important factors leading to fog
- High relative humidity
- Condensation nuclei
- Temp/Dewpoint spread reduced to zero
High Relative Humidity
- Air near the surface must be at or near saturation
- Spread of less than 4ºC
Condensation Nuclei
- Water vapour requires a particle to condense on to
- Dust, pollen, volcanic ash, sea salt, pollution
Temp/Dewpoint Change
- Can happen two ways
- Cooling air to the dew point
- Adding moisture to raise the dew point
Radiation Fog
- Best known type of fog
- Typically forms at night
- Requires clear skies, light winds, stable air
- Caused by radiation cooling, air mass cools from the ground up
- will burn off as sun rises and warming continues
- Can dissipate gradually if there is a cloud layer
Advection Fog
- Warm, moist air travels over cooler land or water surface
- As long as warm air flows over the surface, advection fog will persist
- Wind speeds up to 15 knots provide maximum thickness
- Tends to occur in maritime areas
- Can occur behind a warm front advancing on a very cold air mass
- Can persist for days, until the wind direction changes or surface warms
Upslope Fog
- Light winds push warm, moist air upslope
- Cools adiabatically and condenses into fog
Steam Fog
- Cold air passes over warm water
- Evaporation occurs, increasing the dew point and cooling the air
- Fog forms
- Occurs over rivers and lakes
Frontal (Precipitation) Fog
- Rain or drizzle adds moisture to the air through evaporation
- Evaporation also cools the air
- Happens with warm fronts
Ice Fog
- Moist air on an extremely cold day
- Addition of water vapour to air increases dew point
- Sublimation of water vapour forms ice crystals
- Vapour trails in the sky
Valley Fog
- Version of radiation fog
- Cold air drains down mountain side
- Cools air in valley to dew point
Haze
- Microscopic water droplets, dust, or salt particles suspended in the air
- Pollution makes haze worse
- Stable air only
- Appears bluish, dirty yellow, or orange
- Can severely limit flight visibility
Sky Condition and Visibility
- Amount of cloud cover described as clear, few, scattered, broken, or overcast
- Ceiling is first layer of Broken or Overcast
- VFR operations require 3 SM visibility
- Visibility can be reduced by clouds, precipitation, fog, haze, smoke, snow
- Visibility tends to be less in stable air
Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC)
Ceiling, distance from clouds, and visibility are equal or better than the minimum required for VFR flight
Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC)
- Ceiling, distance from clouds, or visibility are less than the minimum required for VFR flight
- Flights must be IFR
Precipitation
- In clouds at above freezing temps
- Water droplets combine and become heavy and fall to Earth
- Vertical movement causes droplets to collide, called coalescence
- Various forms of precipitation
- In clouds with temps below freezing, ice crystals and water droplets exist at same level
- Water droplets evaporate and water vapour sublimates
- Air temp determines if it is snow or rain
- Heavy precipitation indicates significant vertical development to above the freezing level
Drizzle
- Very small droplets of water
- Fairly uniform
- Max diameter 0.5 mm
- Falls very slowly, forms no rings on puddles
- Limited vertical movement within the cloud
- Usually from stratus clouds, also stratocumulus
Rain
- Larger drops than drizzle
- Diameter over 0.5 mm
- Forms rings on puddles
- Freezing rain is super-cooled water droplets that freeze on contact
- Stratus, cumulus, cumulonimbus
Hail
- Large vertical development clouds have layers
- Lower layer is water, middle layer is water and ice, top layer is ice crystals
- In middle layer, super cooled water droplets and ice crystals collide forming soft ice balls
- When it falls through a water region it picks up water and freezes
- Finally falls out of cloud as hail
- Larger hail means greater vertical currents in the cloud
- Cumulonimbus