Meteorology B

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Re: Meteorology B

Post by bubblebrian »

Hey nationals is in a few days and I still need some help... :(

(especially in warm fronts) When you look at a surface weather map and look at the fronts, does the front symbol mean the beginning of the front where the first winds are (the "tip" of the front), or is it at the end of the front, where it totally becomes an air mass, or somewhere in between?

Thanks! :D
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Re: Meteorology B

Post by bubblebrian »

Also, I need to know:

In the Northern Hempishere, do winds usually rotate clockwise or counterclockwise in warm fronts? How about in cold fronts? How about hurricanes?

Also, is it possible for a warm front to overtake a cold front? (i don't think so, but i'm not sure)

How would I know which clouds are which in a Stuve Diagram?
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Re: Meteorology B

Post by gyourkoshaven »

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Re: Meteorology B

Post by brobo »

bubblebrian wrote: (especially in warm fronts) When you look at a surface weather map and look at the fronts, does the front symbol mean the beginning of the front where the first winds are (the "tip" of the front), or is it at the end of the front, where it totally becomes an air mass, or somewhere in between?
Ok, um...
A front is an imaginary line between hot air and cold air. The hot air and cold air are like big huge sections of air. The front itself is not an object. Its just a highlight of the boundry between these two sections of air. The lines show in which direction the section of air is moving.
So if you come across a question that asks you to draw the fronts, look for dramatic differences in temperature over a very short distance. The area in between is the front. You just need to decide which is moving, if either of them. You then draw the line there, in the direction that its moving. If the cold air is moving, its a cold front, and if the warm air is moving then its a warm front. I hope that makes sense... :?
bubblebrian wrote: In the Northern Hempishere, do winds usually rotate clockwise or counterclockwise in warm fronts? How about in cold fronts? How about hurricanes?
Warm fronts and cold fronts have nothing to do with it. I have some trouble with that principal too, but what you are looking for is high and low pressure systems. In the northern hemispher, winds blow clockwise around a high pressure system. Yes, high pressure systems are usually associated with colder temperatures, but a cold front is like an imaginary boundry, not a system. Hurricanes follow the same idea. They spin counterclockwise in the norhtern hemispher, and clockwise in the souther hemisphere.
bubblebrian wrote: Also, is it possible for a warm front to overtake a cold front? (i don't think so, but i'm not sure)
I'm not sure, but I don't see why not. When a cold front takes over a warm front, is it called an occulated front, but I don't know if it works the same in reverse.
bubblebrain wrote: How would I know which clouds are which in a Stuve Diagram?
Stuve diagram's won't show you the types of clouds, just like Meteograms. You would need to look at a station ball or a sample of METAR (not all METAR code contains this information, however) to find the types of clouds.

But yes, gyourkoshaven is right, most of this information is found in the Meteorology Wiki. I know I wasn't sure about using the [wiki][/wiki] at first, but its a safe place. Its completely designed and made by people on this forum, and is closely moderated by robotman09 and starpug, along with the other mods, so all the information found there is very reliable.

Good luck!

EDIT: Yeah, FueL is right, I made a mistake, but I went ahead and fixed it. Sorry!
Last edited by brobo on May 17th, 2010, 12:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Meteorology B

Post by FueL »

A few things added on to robodude's response:
robodude wrote:Warm fronts and cold fronts have nothing to do with it. I have some trouble with that principal too, but what you are looking for is high and low pressure systems. In the northern hemispher, winds blow counterclockwise around a high pressure system. Yes, high pressure systems are usually associated with colder temperatures, but a cold front is like an imaginary boundry, not a system. Hurricanes follow the same idea. They spin counterclockwise in the norhtern hemispher, and clockwise in the souther hemisphere.
I think you meant winds blow clockwise around a high pressure and counterclockwise around a low. You shouldn't need to know hurricanes, as it's everyday weather. Robodude is correct about their rotations; however, hurricanes are called cyclones in the Southern Hemisphere.
bubblebrian wrote:How would I know which clouds are which in a Stuve Diagram?
There is no way of knowing for sure. However, you can make an educated guess if the diagram includes altitudes with the millibar measurements.
bubblebrian wrote:Also, is it possible for a warm front to overtake a cold front? (i don't think so, but i'm not sure)
I don't think it's possible, actually, since cold fronts move much faster than warm fronts. When a cold front overtakes a warm front though, it becomes an occluded front.
bubblebrian wrote:When you look at a surface weather map and look at the fronts, does the front symbol mean the beginning of the front where the first winds are (the "tip" of the front), or is it at the end of the front, where it totally becomes an air mass, or somewhere in between?
I'm not sure what you mean, but the front is symbol is always located where the two air masses meet at ground level. In this picture, you can see the warm front is actually behind some of the warm air that has risen above the cold air:

Image

Hope this helped, and good luck at nationals. :)
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Re: Meteorology B

Post by gyourkoshaven »

On Stuve diagrams, why are there multiple dotted green and solid yellow lines, if each color represents one statistic?
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Re: Meteorology B

Post by robotman »

gyourkoshaven wrote:On Stuve diagrams, why are there multiple dotted green and solid yellow lines, if each color represents one statistic?
You are wondering about the 10 or so green lines etc ?

These show the different saturation mixing ration at different temperatures. So each colored line represents the staring temperature
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Re: Meteorology B

Post by bubblebrian »

gyourkoshaven wrote:On Stuve diagrams, why are there multiple dotted green and solid yellow lines, if each color represents one statistic?

Image

Look at this stuve diagram for a sec. You see the two black lines (temp and dewpoint), and also the green line, the bluish dashed line, and the yellow dashed line.

The yellow dashed line is the saturation mixing ratio (the dew point needed for the current humidity of the air for the air to be saturated). the green one is the dry adiabat rate (the rate dry air will cool down as it rises through the atmoshpere without any change in wind or tempreture (when air expands, it cools, even though it's the "same" tempreture (since the total kinetic energy per unit gets lower), so that what adaibat means). The bluish line is the saturated adiabat rate, which is the same thing as the dry adiabat rate except the air is saturated. (find more at the wiki at http://scioly.org/wiki/Everyday_Weather).

The rates are different for every level. If the rate was the same, there will be a single line that goes across the board (and will be less cluttered). However, the rates are different. For example, the dry adaibat lapse rate. Go to anywhere on the line, and it will show you the dalr rate for the same ratio. The lines other than the black ones are all just references based on the current conditions. The lines don't tell you the actual condition, but it compares it to what would happen if there was just a single, unmoving, uniform air mass
Hope this explains it a little bit (I myself am not very good at meteorology, though)

In nationals, there might be activities that you have to identify the front (if there is one), what ther corrent conditions are, what types of clouds there are where the rawinsode flew to, and other things.
The data is measured by a radioinsonde, rawindsode, or dropinsode.
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Re: Meteorology B

Post by bubblebrian »

Do we have to know about different weather instruments? (it wasn't on the topic list)
Also, do we have to know about lightning? (also not in topic list)
Do we need to do calculations? (other than simple arithmitic)
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Re: Meteorology B

Post by brobo »

bubblebrian wrote:Do we have to know about different weather instruments? (it wasn't on the topic list)
Yes, several times I found questions pertaining to different weather instruments, but for the most part it was just identifying them.
bubblebrian wrote:Also, do we have to know about lightning? (also not in topic list)
No, this years topic is everyday weather. Next year is severe storms, so you don't need to know about lightning until next year.
However, it might not be a bad idea to know the basics of lightning, but you don't need to spend a lot of time on it.
bubblebria wrote:Do we need to do calculations? (other than simple arithmitic)
I think the most you will need to know is conversions from Fahrenheit to Celsius to Kalvin and back, and also millibars to In.Hg., etc.
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