When you fly in the vicinity of a front, be sure to keep an eye on your groundspeed: If it drops significantly reevaluate your fuel reserves! A front is the boundary line between two different air masses. The air masses' characteristics and how they move or don’t move determine the type of …

Short range forecast maps depict pressure patterns, circulation centers, fronts, and types and extent of precipitation 12 to 48 hours out. Aviation Weather Center (AWC) —Provides textual, digital, and graphical forecasts, analyses, and observations.

An air mass originates from the source region and determines the moisture and temperature characteristics of an air mass. For an air mass to develop, the surface of the source region must be relatively flat and uniform in composition (i.e., oceans, deserts, glaciers.), but not a …

In this chapter we’ll learn that some regions of the atmosphere have similar air properties and are named by those properties as a collective mass of air or “air mass”. High pressure systems, especially, are very common air masses.

Topography and Fronts Cold air trapped in Appalachian valleys is often analyzed as a distorted warm front. The cold air in the front’s southward “dip” is quite shallow. Above the top of the shallow air the front does not dip southward.

Two air masses are at a “stand-off,” waiting for one to make a move. The wind blows parallel to the front, but in opposite directions. Now we know the front types...but how do we find them? Cold front—Precipitation is mostly behind the front, but there is some before and along the front.

Air masses are classified based on their temperature and humidity. In the winter continental Arctic (cA) air masses can also impact weather in the United States. What temperature and moisture characterize these air masses? What features of a source region allow for …

Air mass source regions occur only in the high or low latitudes; middle latitudes are too variable. Air masses are classified according to the temperature and moisture characteristics of their source regions. Based on temperature: tropical (warm), polar (cold), arctic (extremely cold).

generalities of air-mass modification; examples (Chinook; lake effect snow) types of fronts and their symbols identifying features and weather characteristic of cold & warm fronts

Lows, and convergence, uplift, clouds, and precipitation, also occur at higher latitudes. What energizes them? Answer: the jet stream !!