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Air Masses and Fronts. Types of Air Masses. Maritime Polar – over water, wet, cool. Maritime Tropical – over water, wet, warm. Continental Tropical- over continent, dry, warm. Continental Polar – over continent, dry, cool. How a Front Forms. When air masses meet, causes weather to changed.
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Types of Air Masses • Maritime Polar – over water, wet, cool. • Maritime Tropical – over water, wet, warm. • Continental Tropical- over continent, dry, warm. • Continental Polar – over continent, dry, cool.
How a Front Forms • When air masses meet, causes weather to changed. • Prevailing Westerlies is a major wind belt over the US, pushes West to East bringing low clouds and showers. • Jet Streams, inside the westerlies, high speed winds above the Earth’s surface. • Fronts: huge masses of air that move across land and oceans that collide with each other, but don’t easily mix.
Types of Fronts • Cold Fronts – Dense and sink. If quicker, slides under the warm front. Causes clouds to form, heavy rain or snow. Arrive quickly. Afterwards, have colder drier air. • Warm fronts – overtakes slower moving cold front, since it is less dense it moves over the cold front, weather is rainy, cloudy for several days. Brings warmer temperature and humidity.
Occluded Front • MOST COMPLEX and Difficult to understands. • Cool mass – Warm Mass –Cool Mass. (this means that warm mass is sandwiched between the cold masses) • Two cooler masses can mix, warm air is cut off, rises, as warm air cools water vapor condenses, weather may turn cloudy and have precipitation.
Stationary Fronts • This is when cold and warm fronts meet, but they can’t budge each other. Water vapor from the warm air condenses. • It may bring many clouds and precipitation.
