Exam 6: Air Pressure and Winds

What is a prevailing wind?

Define prevailing wind. Give an example of how they can affect a region's climate. How can prevailing winds influence city planning and residential construction?

Instructions: Choose one answer from each pair of selections. If the air pressure were to increase, the height of the column in a mercury barometer would INCREASE | DECREASE.

Instructions: Choose one answer from each pair of selections. If you look in the direction the upper-level wind is blowing in the northern hemisphere, low pressure will be to your RIGHT | LEFT.

The wind around a surface high pressure center in the Northern Hemisphere blows ____.

A gradient wind blowing around the low-pressure center is constantly accelerating because it is constantly changing directions. This is called ____.

If upper-level divergence exceeds surface convergence, the air pressure at the center of the low will ____, and the isobars will become ____ tightly packed.

Suppose that the winds aloft are geostrophic and blowing from the north. With the same orientation of isobars at the surface, the winds would blow from the ____.

To obtain the station pressure you must normally make corrections for ____.

A wind profiler obtains wind information using ____.

Upper-level winds blow from west to east in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

If the earth's gravitational force were to increase, atmospheric pressure at the ground would ____.

An object is falling at constant speed. The net force is ____.

Which of the following forces does not have a direct effect on horizontal wind motions?

Instructions: Choose one answer from each pair of selections. Would you expect to hear MILLIBAR or INCHES OF MERCURY pressure units used on a television weather report?

Briefly describe the friction layer and how it affects wind speeds.

If, at your home in the Northern Hemisphere, the surface wind is blowing from the northwest, then the region of lowest pressure will be to the ____ of your home.

The winds aloft in the middle latitudes would not blow from the west if the ____.

What is the Coriolis force and how is it influenced by wind speed?

Instructions: Choose one answer from each pair of selections. Wind direction is given as the direction TOWARDS | FROM which it is blowing.