The Four Weather Fronts

 

Hello readers and welcome to my blog about the four weather fronts. They are going to be explained in my blog.

 

What are air masses and weather fronts?

The properties and movements of air masses are responsible for all the weather patterns we experience in daily life. An air mass is a large body of air, with similar temperature and moisture content throughout. And a weather front is a boundary between air masses with different properties. It is a zone of transmission between two different air masses. The type of the front depends on the direction in which the air mass is moving. There are four fronts: cold, warm, occluded and stationary fronts.

Cold Front

It is defined as the transmission zone where a cold air mass is replacing a warmer air mass. The cold front forms when a cold air mass pushes under a warm air mass, forcing the warm air to rise. The air behind the cold front is usually colder and drier than the air ahead of the front. Cold fronts move always from northwest to southeast. When a cold front passes through, the temperature can drop more than 15 degrees within the first hour.

The cold fronts are always drawn with a solid blue line with triangles along the front pointing towards the warm air and in the direction of moment.

Warm Front

The warm front is defined as the transmission zone where a warm air mass is replacing a cold air mass. It forms when a moist, warm air mass slides up and over a cold air mass. And the air behind the warm front is warmer and moister than the air ahead of it. When a warm front passes through, the air becomes noticeably warmer and more humid than it was before. Warm fronts usually move from southwest to northeast, so it is the opposite of the cold front.

A warm front is drawn with a solid red lime with semicircles pointing towards the colder air and in the direction at movement.

Occluded Front

An occluded front is a weather front formed during the process of “cyclogenesis”, which means when a cold front over takes a warm front. When the warm front is separated (occluded) from the cyclone center at the Earth’s surface. It is the point where warm front and occluded front meet. It is so-called “triple point”.

In other words, as the storm intensifies, the cold front rotates around the storm and catches the warm front and this forms an occluded front. It forms when a warm air mass gets caught between two cold air masses. The warm air mass rises as the cool air masses push and meet in the middle.

Occluded front are always drawn with a solid purple line with altering triangles and circles, pointing the direction the front s moving.

Stationary Front

A stationary front is a pair of air masses, neither of which is strong enough to replace the other.

A wide variety of weather can be found along a stationary front, but usually clouds, prolonged precipitation, and storm trains are found there.

Stationary front will either dissipate after several days or devolve into sheer lines, but it can change to warm front or cold front if conditions aloft change. It forms when warm and cold airs meet, and neither air mass has the force to move the other. They remain stationary, or “standing still”. It is represented by alternating blue and red lines with blue triangles pointing towards the warm air and red semicircles pointing towards the colder air.

This is how the fronts are represented in a weather map.

//1R.C

Rayan Chahrour 9BL1