Meteorology Pt 2 Flashcards
Describe various scales of motion and give an example of each.
microscale motion are formed by convection or by winds and are usually short lived. Mesoscale is the circulation of city air, they also last longer than microscale. Synoptic Scale also known as weather-map scale, this scale often last days if not weeks. Global scale is wind patterns over the entire Earth. Macroscale the largest scale of atmospheric motion.
What is wind shear and how does it relate to clear air turbulence?
Wind shear is the winds change in speed or direction abruptly, and it is related to clear air turbulence because just like Wind shear turbulence is abrupt.
Using a diagram, explain how a thermal circulation develops
The air in contact with a warmer surface will expand, become less dense, develop buoyancy and start to rise. As the air moves away from the surface source of energy, its temperature decreases. As the air moves upward, more air converges in to the area replacing the air that rose.
Why does a sea breeze at the surface blow from sea to land and a land breeze from land to sea?
The wind will blow from the higher pressure over the water to lower pressure over the land causing the sea breeze. The sea breeze strength will vary depending on the temperature difference between the land and the ocean. At night, the roles reverse. The air over the ocean is now warmer than the air over the land.
Which wind will produce clouds: a Valley breeze or a mountain breeze? why?
The wind will blow from the higher pressure over the water to lower pressure over the land causing the sea breeze. The sea breeze strength will vary depending on the temperature difference between the land and the ocean. At night, the roles reverse. The air over the ocean is now warmer than the air over the land
What are katabatic winds? How do they form?
The term katabatic wind usually refers to a Cold downslope wind. A katabatic wind can develop when a pool of cold, high elevation air begins to decends from the highlands due to the high density of the cold air. Katabatic winds may also be synoptically triggered or activated by large scale weather features such as a high pressure system over the high elevations
Describe how dust devils usually form.
They form when hot air near the surface rises quickly through a small pocket of cooler, low-pressure air above it.
Briefly explain how monsoon wind system develops over eastern and Southern Asia.
in SUMMER the Asian inland is heated up by the Sun and its temperature rises quickly, creating an extensive low pressure region, which leads the air over the Indian Ocean to flow toward the land
In WINTER, a high pressure system develops over the cold Asian Continent. A large amount of cold dry air blows out from the continent, and will only absorb water vapor until it reaches the ocean surface far from the land.
Why in India is the summer monsoon wet and the winter monsoon dry?
During the SUMMER the blows inland. This high water vapor air is then lifted up the increasing elevation of India which acts to cool the air and cause the copious amounts of rainfall. During the WINTER this flow reverses and cooler, drier air from the north sinks down and blows offshore. This dries the air further and creates the dry season there.
Most of the United States is located in what wind belt?
The westerly wind Belt
Explain how and why the average surface pressure features shift from summer to winter?
The shift is due to the apparent movement of the sun from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere caused by the earth’s tilt.
This pressure value shifts with the movement of the sun.
Explain why summers along the West Coast of the United States tend to be dry, whereas along the East Coast summers tend to be wet.
During the summer, the Pacific high drifts northward to its eastern side produces a strong upper-level subsidence inversion, which tends to keep summer weather along the West Coast relatively dry. Along the east Coast, the clockwise circulation of winds around the Bermuda high brings warm tropical air northward into the United States and southern Canada from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Because sinking air is not as well developed on this side of the high, the humid air can rise and condense into towering cumulus clouds and thunderstorms
Explain why chinook winds are warm and dry.
Or known as “Snow eater”, the winds are caused by moist weather patterns originating off the Pacific Coast, cooling as they climb the western slopes, and then rapidly warming as they drop down the eastern side of the mountain
As the air temperature increases, the air’s capacity for water vapor _.
increases
Condensation is more likely to occur when air__.
cools and the speed of the water vapor molecules decreases
