Exam 8: Air Masses, Fronts, and Middle Latitude Cyclones

Instructions: Choose one answer from each pair of selections. Lake-effect snows result when an air mass moves across a large body of FROZEN | UNFROZEN water.

Atmospheric shortwaves tend to ____ when they approach a longwave trough and ____ when they approach a ridge.

The stages of a developing wave cyclone (in order of occurrence) are ____.

Explain the progress of the maritime polar air mass in the accompanying figure as it moves from west to east across several mountain ranges. Describe the air at each point (A-F).

You might expect to find a lee-side low developing near a(n) ____________________.

Instructions: Choose one answer from each pair of selections. In a cold occlusion, the upper-level warm front PRECEDES | FOLLOWS the surface occluded front.

When a cold front passes, the lowest pressure reading at a station will occur ____.

What type of weather front would be responsible for the following weather forecast? "Increasing cloudiness and warm today with the possibility of showers by this evening. Turning much colder tonight with southwesterly winds becoming gusty and shifting to the northwest."

What is the origin of the cP and cA air masses that enter the United States?

What type of weather front would be responsible for the following weather forecast? "Increasing high cloudiness and cold this morning. Clouds increasing and lowering this afternoon with a chance of snow or rain tonight. Precipitation ending tomorrow morning. Turning much warmer. Winds from the south and becoming southwesterly tomorrow."

The forward progress of a warm front may be inhibited at night as a result of ____.

The coldest of all air masses is ____.

During a cold occlusion, the cold front forces the warm front to ____.

Wintertime Atlantic mP air masses are less likely to move into the United States than those along the Pacific coast primarily because the ____.

Instructions: Choose one answer from each pair of selections. Because wintertime Atlantic maritime polar air masses travel only a short distance over water, they usually are much WARMER | COLDER than their Pacific counterparts.

During the winter, an air mass that moves into coastal sections of Oregon and Washington from the northwest would most likely be ____.

For a surface low to develop into a major storm system, the upper-level divergence of air must be ____ surface convergence of air.

Mid-latitude cyclonic storms are better developed in the United States during the coldest months because the polar jet stream ____.

For a surface cyclonic storm to intensify, there must be an upper-level ____________________ of low pressure.

When two air masses collide at a front, one air mass may be pushed upward by the other. This is because ____.