Warm and Cold Front
Name: ______________________________________________________________ Period: _____ Date: ____________
Essential Question: How do I differentiate a cold front from a warm front?
WEATHER:
Weather is basically the way the atmosphere is
currently behaving, mainly with respect to its effects
upon life and human activities. Most people think of
weather in terms of temperature, humidity,
precipitation, cloudiness, brightness, visibility, wind,
and atmospheric pressure, as in high and low pressure.
High Air pressure means good, clear, sunny weather
while low are pressure mean rainy or stormy weather.
CLIMATE:
Climate is the description of the long-term pattern of
weather in a particular area.
Some scientists define climate as the average weather
for a particular region and time period, usually taken
over 30-years. When scientists talk about climate,
they're looking at averages of precipitation,
temperature, humidity, sunshine, wind velocity,
phenomena such as fog, frost, and hail storms, and
other measures of the weather that occur over a long period in a particular place.
Weather Fronts or simply fronts are the boundaries between air masses of different temperature. If warm air mass is moving
toward cold air mass, it is a “warm front”. These are shown on weather maps as a red line with scallops on it. If cold air mass is
moving toward warm air mass, then it is a “cold front”. Cold fronts are always shown as a blue line with arrow points on it. If
neither air masses are moving very much, it is called a “stationary front”, shown as an alternating red and blue line. Cold fronts
tend to move faster than all other types of fronts. Cold fronts tend to be associated with the most violent weather like
thunderstorms, snow storm, and blizzard. Warm fronts tend to move slowly. Warm fronts are typically less violent than cold fronts.
Although they can trigger thunderstorms, warm fronts are more likely to be associated with large regions of light to moderate
continuous rain.
The Earth’s rotation is very important to the formation of fronts . The rotation causes the wind to exhibit the Coriolis effect. The
rotation of the Earth causes the wind that would normally flow directly from one air mass to another to, instead, flow around the
air masses. This helps maintain the air masses’ identity, as well as the “front” between the air masses.
http://www.weatherquestions.com/What_are_fronts.htm http: //wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_weather_and_climate
Clarifying Questions:
1. What is weather?
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2. How is weather different from climate? Is it the amount of time?
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3. Define the following terminologies in your own words.
a. Temperature: _____________________________________________________________________________________________
b. Humidity: _____________________________________________ ___________________________________________________
c. Precipitation: _____________________________________________________________________________________________
d. Visibility: ________________________________________________________________________________________________
e. Wind:____________________________________________________________________________________________________
f. Atmospheric pressure:______________________________________________________________________________________
4. Why do you need to be aware of the five day weather forecast ? Think!
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5. What is a weather front?
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