Weather Flashcards
Continental Polar
- cold, dense
- displaces warm air in path (lifting cooling condensation)
Winter cP
- cold, stable air, clear skies
- high pressure, anticyclonic wind-flow
Maritime Polar
- cool moist
- unstable conditions
- over most Northern oceans
Maritime Tropical: Gulf/Atlantic
-unstable and active from late spring to early fall
Maritime Tropical: Pacific
- stable to conditionally unstable
- lower in moisture content than other mT zones
Convective Air Lifting
- warm air rises
- warmer surfaces, due to local heating
Orographic Air Lifting
-forced over physical barrier
Convergent/Cyclonic Air Lifting
- low pressure, air convergence
- cools air and condensation occurs
Frontal Air Lifting
-air is lifted at frontal boundary
Front
- narrow, defined boundary between two contrasting air masses
- warm, cold, occluded, stationary
Cold Front
- led by cold air mass
- forces warm air aloft
- 400 km wide
- follow by precipitation
Warm Front
- led by warm air mass
- forced to rise over cool air
- 1 000 km wide
- drizzling ahead of front
Occluded Front
- warm air is caught between two cold fronts
- forced upwards
- low pressure areas, strong winds and heavy precipitation
Stationary Front
- neither mass move (cold vs. warm)
- 50 to 100 km
- cloud and precipitation
- temperature and wind different on either side
- dissipates or moves forward
Mid-latitude Cyclone: Stage One
- cyclogenesis
- convergence of warm and cold air
Mid-latitude Cyclone: Stage Two
- open stage
- warm air forced North, cool air forced south
- warm air was sucked in from the south and shot out to the north
Mid-latitude Cyclone: Stage Three
- Occluded Stage
- cold front overtakes warm front
- raises warm air completely
- INTENSE precipitation
Mid-latitude Cyclone: Stage Four
- Dissolving
- cold front re-established
- clouds clear, precipitation stops