The Major Weather Makers
What causes some types of weather to happen?
Wild About Wind
How Many are There?!
Believe it or not there are many different types of winds. Some of them are trade winds, prevailing westerlies, Polar Easterlies and Sea breezes. Trade winds Blow from either north or south of the earth and blows towards the equater. Prevailing westerlies blows west to east. Polar easterlies blows south and west or north and east. Finally, sea breezes: sea breezes occur at any place with a large body of water when the sun is out. The land heats quicker than the water does. Lighter warmer air rises over the water, then cooler air meets with the warm air and creates a sea breeze.
What is It?
What are jet streams anyway? Well, jet streams are strong fast-moving streams of wind high in the atmosphere. They always move west to east no matter what is happening. Did you know they are caused by huge differences of the temperature in the atmosphere?
This is an example of a jet stream. It shows that it is moving across the United States.
Air Masses
Air masses are big dome shaped volumes of air with about the same temperature and humidity through out the. They can go to 100 or even 1000 miles across land. These air masses only form in polar or tropical areas! When two different types of air masses meet they can cause bad weather!
Fronts
What are They?
Fronts are when two different types of air masses with either or both different types of temperature or humidity meets. They make a boundry between themselves and bad weather can occur. There are as much as four different types of fronts: cold fronts, warm fronts, stationary fronts and occluded fronts.
Cool Cold Fronts
Cold fronts are when a cold air mass pushes into a warm air mass. The cold air mass slides underneath the lighter warm air mass and pushes it up and causes it to cool. If there is enough amount of moisture in the air, rain or snow may fall. If really cold and dry air masses push into each other very fierce weather can happen like big thunderstorms or even tornadoes.
Wet Warm Fronts
A warm front happens when a warm air mass climbs over the sloping sides of a retreating cold air mass. This lift causes the warm air mass to cool and often produces clouds to form. Precipitation like rain, drizzle or snow often happens during this time.
Stuck from the Stationary Fronts
These types of fronts happen when both air masses meet but stop moving due to the pressure difference. This can stay over many days. Weather like rain and mild wind may mostly occur for a few days.
Over powered Occluded Fronts
The final front occurs when two cold air masses meet and forces warmer air between the two. This causes severe wind and big amounts of heavy precipitation.
These are all the symbols for the fronts
Wind Tools
Beaufort Scale
Did you know that there is actually a scale that describes wind force and wind speed? (On a scale of 0-12), it uses numbers and symbols to describe how harsh the wind is. 0 equals very calm and 12 equals a Hurricane! It even tells you what can happen during what number the beaufort scale ranks it.
This is a beaufort scale.
Anemometer
Well, there is a scale that describes wind force and speed and there also is a tool that measures wind speed. Hand held anemometer work by the wind pushing circular things attached to something shaped like a stick. There is a small thing attached to the stick that measures the wind.
This is a hand held anemometer.