A large mass of air with similar temperature and humidity.
What is an air mass?
100
An area where two air masses meet.
What is a front?
100
A violent disturbance in the atmosphere that cause sudden changes in air pressure and rapid air movements. (i.e. thunderstorms, tornados)
What are storms?
100
Scientists who study the weather.
Who are meteorologists?
100
The red "L" on a weather map
What is low air pressure?
200
A warm, humid air mass that forms over oceans near the tropics. In winter this type of air mass can bring heavy rain or snow.
What is a Maritime Tropical Air Mass?
200
This front forms when fast moving cold air mass runs into a slow moving warm air mass. The dense cold air slides under the lighter warm air. This type of front brings abrupt weather, including violent thunderstorms.
What is a cold front?
200
A sudden spark, or energy discharge, that jump between parts of a cloud or between the cloud and the ground.
What is lightning?
200
Two tools meteorologists use to help them forecast the weather.
What are local weather observers, weather balloons, satellites, computer programs, or weather stations around the world?
200
The blue "H" on a weather map.
What is a high pressure system?
300
A type of air mass that forms over central and Northern Canada and Alaska. They bring clear, cool or cold air.
What is the Continental Polar Air Mass?
300
When cold and warm air masses meet, but neither has enough force to move the other. This type of front may bring many days of clouds and precipitation.
What is a stationary front?
300
A rapidly whirling, funnel-shaped cloud that reaches down from a storm cloud to touch Earth's surface.
What is a tornado?
300
A warm water event that occurs every 2-7 years and can cause dramatic climate changes.
What is El Nino?
300
The type of pressure system that is associated with heavy air? The type of pressure system associated with light air?
heavy air = high pressure and light air = low pressure
400
A cool, humid air mass that forms over the icy cold North Pacific and North Atlantic oceans. These type of air masses affect the west coast more than the east and bring fog, rain, and cool temperatures even in the summer.
What is a Maritime Polar Air Mass?
400
A front that forms when a moving warm air mass collides with a slowly moving cold air mass, moving over the cold air. If the warm air is humid, showers and light rain fall and if the air is dry, scattered clouds form. In winter these fronts bring snow.
What is a warm front?
400
When so much water pours into a stream or river that it overflows its banks and covers the land on either side of the channel.
What is a flood?
400
Lines joining places on a weather map that have the same temperature.
What is an isotherm?
400
The swirling center of a low pressure system. This type of pressure system brings about clouds and precipitation.
What is a cyclone?
500
A hot, dry air mass that forms ONLY in the summer over dry areas of the Southwest and northern Mexico.
What is a continental tropical air mass?
500
The most complex weather front, in which a warm air mass is caught between two cooler air masses. Temperatures near the ground become cooler and the weather may turn cloudy and rainy or snowy.
What is an occluded front?
500
A tropical storm that has winds of 119 kilometers per hour or higher. Typically these are 600 kilometers across.
What is a hurricane?
500
Lines joining places on a weather map that have similar air pressure.
What is an isobar?
500
High pressure systems of dry air. These pressure systems bring dry, clear weather.