The symbol that is used to identify a warm front on a weather map is a red line with half circles that point in the direction in which the warm front is moving. The line represents the leading edge of the warmer air mass.

stormy

Latitude and longitude make up the grid system that helps humans identify absolute, or exact, locations on the Earth’s surface. There is a relationship between latitude and temperature around the world, as temperatures are typically warmer approaching the Equator and cooler approaching the Poles.

Cold fronts usually bring cooler weather, clearing skies, and a sharp change in wind direction.

Stationary Front: a front that is not moving. When a warm or cold front stops moving, it becomes a stationary front.

Cold fronts

The denser, cold air pushes up the warm air mass approaches altocumulus. Larger rotating system called a mid-latitude which front is most likely to last for days that air mass at the front approaches tornadoes!

Movement. Fronts are generally guided by winds aloft, but do not move as quickly. Cold fronts and occluded fronts in the Northern Hemisphere usually travel from the northwest to southeast, while warm fronts move more poleward with time. In the Northern Hemisphere a warm front moves from southwest to northeast.

stationary front

Occluded fronts

Cold air GENERALLY has higher pressure because it is denser. Hot air GENERALLY has lower pressure because it is less dense. In weather fronts, it can be the opposite due to the rising or falling of the air currents.

Cold air sinks. Sinking air compresses and heats. As air sinks, air pressure at the surface is raised. Cold air holds less moisture than warm.

High pressure systems can be cold or warm, humid or dry. If the high pressure originates from the north, it will generally bring cold or cooler weather. When high pressures form, they adopt the characteristics of the source regions over which they form.

Since cold air is more dense than warm air… cold air masses are associated with lower pressure at a given height in upper levels of the atmosphere (think of the atmosphere being compressed). So troughs in the upper level wind pattern are associated with cold air masses, and ridges with warm air masses.

The temperature of the gas is proportional to the average kinetic energy of its molecules. Faster moving particles will collide with the container walls more frequently and with greater force. This causes the force on the walls of the container to increase and so the pressure increases.

As water vapor condenses, it creates clouds, precipitation, and generally unsettled weather. Because air rises near areas of low pressure, this type of weather often occurs in lows. Locations to the south and east of a low center (a region known as the “warm sector”) will see warm, moist weather.

As the molecules heat and move faster, they are moving apart. So air, like most other substances, expands when heated and contracts when cooled. Because there is more space between the molecules, the air is less dense than the surrounding matter and the hot air floats upward.

Hot air is less dense than cold air, which is why hot air rises and cold air sinks, according to the United States Department of Energy.

It is not the heat that rises, it’s that a warm liquid or gas is generally less dense than the same liquid or gas at a lower temperature and will therefore but pushed out of the way by the more dense cold gas or liquid.

Convection is the transfer of heat by the physical movement of hot masses of air. As air is heated, it expands (as do all objects). (This is why the air near the ceiling of a heated room is warmer than that near the floor.)

Why is my upstairs always too hot? Warm air rises. It’s a fact of nature: warm air rises above cool air. So at any given time in your home, your upper levels likely contain more warm air than the lower levels because warm air tends to gravitate up toward them.

Fundamentally, the air on the floor will be the temperature of the floor. Things are different at night when the ceiling can be colder than the floor. Convection may then transfer heat from the floor to the ceiling in a “thermal siphon”, but only when the floor is hotter than the ceiling.

During the winter, the air near your floor is cold, while the air near your ceiling is hot. Similarly, during the summer, the air conditioner keeps your first floor comfortable, while the rooms on the second floor are unbearably hot. (It’s true that hot air rises by convection.

Use negative ventilation to move heated air out of the downstairs and vent it outside. Mount window fans to circulate air out of the house from the downstairs. Open upstairs windows to facilitate the air circulation, and the negative ventilation achieved downstairs will literally pull the upstairs air downward.

First, if you also have forced air, turn the fan on to help circulate heat. Make sure your ceiling fans rotate clockwise so they pull cool air up off the floor and push warm air down. And also keep them running at their lowest speed. If you don’t, you’ll simply feel the chill from the cool breeze they create.

If the first floor of your home is colder in the winter months, keep the dampers on the first-floor vents fully open and only partially open the vents on the second floor to force more of the warm air to enter the first-floor areas.

You may remember from science class that the temperature of the air affects its density, or how much it weighs. Cold air is denser than warm air so it stays on the bottom while warm air rises. That’s why the downstairs can feel so chilly while the upstairs is toasty in the winter.

Physics is the challenge here, because hot air rises and cold air sinks. So your upstairs has a natural tendency to be warmer than lower levels. Hot roof. If you don’t have an attic space to buffer the heat or your roof isn’t well insulated, this will increase the heat factor upstairs.

In most homes, dampers going to the upstairs are open in the summer and closed in the winter. By closing the dampers to the upstairs in the winter, it allows for the heat to rise naturally after first being introduced into the lower levels of the home.

Warm Fronts The weather map symbol for a warm front is a red curved line with red semi-circles. The semi-circles point in the direction the warm air is moving.

Warm Front Warm fronts often bring stormy weather as the warm air mass at the surface rises above the cool air mass, making clouds and storms. These clouds form in the warm air that is high above the cool air. As the front passes over an area, the clouds become lower, and rain is likely.

Cold fronts are always shown as a blue line with arrow points on it. If neither air mass is moving very much, it is called a �stationary front�, shown as an alternating red and blue line. Usually, a cold front will be associated with a warm front, with a low pressure center, connecting them (see above).

The symbol that is used to identify a cold front on a weather map is a blue line with triangles that point in the direction in which the cold front is moving. The line is represents the leading edge of the cooler air mass.

Development of cold fronts The drier, colder air forms a steeply sloping boundary under the warmer, moister air at the surface and lifts that air. This often causes cloud formations with strong vertical development, which may manifest as a line of showers and thunderstorms when enough moisture is present.

Cold, dense air squeezes its way through the warmer, less-dense air, and lifts the warm air. Because air is lifted instead of being pressed down, the movement of a cold front through a warm front is usually called a low-pressure system.

The air mass behind a cold front is likely to be cooler and drier than the one before the front. If a cold front is approaching, precipitation is possible just before and while the front passes. Behind the front, expect clearing skies, cooler temperatures, and lower relative humdities.

In meteorology, an air mass is a volume of air defined by its temperature and water vapor content. Colder air masses are termed polar or arctic, while warmer air masses are deemed tropical. Continental and superior air masses are dry while maritime and monsoon air masses are moist.

The first signs of an approaching warm front are the appearance of high, thin, wispy cirrus clouds. As the front nears, the clouds will become lower in the sky and be thicker, since there will be more air at lower elevations from which to condense clouds.

A cold weather front is defined as the changeover region where a cold air mass is replacing a warmer air mass. A warm weather front is defined as the changeover region where a warm air mass is replacing a cold air mass.

20 to 25 mph

Warm fronts produce clouds when warm air replaces cold air by sliding above it. Many different cloud types can be created in this way: altocumulus, altostratus, cirrocumulus, cirrostratus, cirrus, cumulonimbus (and associated mammatus clouds), nimbostratus, stratus, and stratocumulus.

extra-tropical cyclone. Why does the warm front of a MLC have very little influence on the weather of South Africa? Causes floods. Causes snow that can attract tourists in the Western Cape.

When two different air masses come into contact, they don’t mix. They push against each other along a line called a front. When a warm air mass meets a cold air mass, the warm air rises since it is lighter.

• Surface heating and free convection. During the daytime, the earth’s surface is heated by the sun, which in turn heats the air in contact with the surface.
• Surface Convergence and/or Upper-level Divergence.
• Lifting Due To Topography.
• Lifting Along Frontal Boundaries.

Explanation: No matter the type of front the warm air is always over the cold air, due to density. A cold front is the leading edge of a cold air mass and that mass pushes up the warm air ahead of it. A warm front is the trailing edge of a cold air mass.

Warm air rides along the front (up and over the cold air mass), cooling as it rises, producing clouds and precipitation in advance of the surface warm front. Because the lifting is very gradual and steady, generally wide spread and light intensity precipitation develops ahead of a warm front.

Convergence: When two air masses of the same temperature collide and neither is willing to go back down, the only way to go is up. As the name implies, the two winds converge and rise together in an updraft that often leads to cloud formation.

On weather maps, a low pressure system is labeled with red L. A high pressure system has higher pressure at its center than the areas around it.

Front, in meteorology, interface or transition zone between two air masses of different density and temperature; the sporadic flareups of weather along this zone, with occasional thunderstorms and electrical activity, was, to the Norwegian meteorologists who gave it its name during World War I, analogous to the …

Weather Fronts cold fronts move faster than warm fronts. Cold fronts bring precipitation and sometimes thunder storms. A warm front is a front that replaces cold air. A warm front has warmer air and brings humidity to the area. A occluded front is represented by a purple/pink line with triangles and semi circles.

The location of the colored radar echoes indicate where precipitation is falling and the various colors indicate the intensity of the precipitation through the color code in the legend below. Shades of blue represent lighter precipitation while red and purple indicate heavier precipitation.

Purple= Extremely heavy rain or hail. Winter Weather Colors. White or Blue= Snow. Pink= Freezing Rain or Sleet or Both. Sometimes snow can show up as yellow or orange as the radar may think it is small hail.