Term
| synoptic scale or weather-map scale |
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Definition
| somewhat smaller macroscale |
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| largest wind patterns, exemplified by the westerlies and trade winds, extend around the entire globe and remain essentially unchanged for weeks at a time. |
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last for several minutes and may exist for hours. less than 100 kilometers across(62 miles)
example thunderstorms, tornadoes, land and sea breezes and mountain and valley winds. |
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the smallest scale of air motion,chaotic winds normally last for seconds or at most minutes.
examples include simple gusts, which hurl debris in the air and small, well developed vortices such as dust devils. |
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| swift geostrophic airsteams in the upper troposphere that meander in relatively narrow belts. |
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| air flow cycling around low pressure in a counterclockwise direction. |
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| with your back to the wind in the northern hemisphere low pressure will be to your left and high pressure will be to your right. the Southern hemisphere is reversed. |
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| The Jet stream always travels? |
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| Inter-tropical Convergence zone (ITCZ) |
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| A pressure belt near the equator with ascending moist, hot air and marked by abundant precipitation. |
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| develops as cooler air over the water moves onto the land. |
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| the land cools more rapidly than the sea |
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| during the day, air along mountain slopes is heated more intensely than air at the same elevation over the valley floor. this warmer air glides up along the mountain slope. |
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| rapid radiation heat loss along the mountain slopes cools the air, which drains into the valley below. |
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| warm, dry winds that move down the east slopes of the Rockies. created when wen a strong pressure gradient develops in a mountainous region. |
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| warm, dry winds that move down the east slopes of the Alps. |
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| Found in Southern California, hot, descending winds greatly increase the threat of forest fires in an already dry region. |
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| Katabatic wind or fall wind |
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Definition
| orginate when cool air, situated over a highland area such as the ice sheets of Greenland or Antarctica, is set motion. under the influence of gravity, the cold air cascades over the rim of a highland like a waterfall. |
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| the most famous katabatic wind, which blows from the french alps toward the Mediterranean Sea. |
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| katabatic wind, which originates in the mountains of Yugoslavia and blows to the Adriatic Sea. |
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| mesoscale wind, associated with large urban areas where a light wind blowing into the city from the surrounding countryside occurs.The result is that the warm. less dense air over the city rises, which in turn initiates the country-to-city flow. |
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Definition
| A boundary between air masses. |
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| winds are generally week and variable near the center of this zone of descending air. |
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| Two belts of wind that blow almost constantly from the easterly directions and are lovated on the equatorward side of the subtropical highs. |
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| the dominant west-to-east motion of the atmosphere that characterizes the regions on the poleward side of the subtropical highs. |
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| The global pattern of prevailing winds, winds that blow from the polar high toward the subpolar low. they are not persistent winds like trade winds. |
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| The stormy frontal zone separating air masses of polar orgin from air masses of tropical origin. |
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Definition
| high pressure zones on both sides of the equator, where the westerlies and trade winds originate and go their separate ways. These zones of high pressure are caused mainly by the Coriolis deflection |
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Definition
low pressure situated at about 50 degrees to 60 latitude where the polar easterlies and westerlies clash.
responsible for much of the stormy weather in the middle latitudes, particularly winter. |
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| high-pressure near the earth's poles because arie near the poles is cold and dense, it exerts a highter than average pressure. |
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| a very strong pressure center, positioned over the frozen landscape of norther Asia. Cold anticyclone that consist of very dense air that accounts for the weight of the air columns. |
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Term
| Aleutian and Icelandic lows |
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Definition
| cyclonic cells that are situated over the North Pacific and North Atlantic,They are in January but not in July, intense semipermanent low-pressure systems, almost alway experiencing low pressure because because there are so many cyclones present in these areas. |
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| During the peak of the summer season, the subtropical high found in the North Atlantic |
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| a wind system that exhibits a pronounced seasonal reversal in direction. |
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| sometimes called mid-latitude jet stream because it occurs mainly in the middle latitudes |
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| a semipermanent jet that exists over the subtropics and is mainly a wintertime phenomenon. west-to-east flowing current is centered at 25 degrees latitude at an altitude of about 13 kilometers(8 miles) |
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| vertical water movements. |
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Definition
The name given to the periodic warming of the ocean that occurs n the central and eastern Pacific.
the cold Peruvian current flows equatorward along the coast of Ecuador and Peru. This flow encourages upwelling of cold nutrient-filled waters that serve as the primary food source for millions of fish. Near the end of each year, however, a warm current flows southward along the coasts of Ecuador and Peru replacing the cold Peruvian current. It comes around Christmas. |
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| The seesaw pattern of atmospheric pressure between the eastern and western Pacific. |
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| Reverse effect of El Nino.When winter blow colder than normal air over the Pacific Northwest and the northern Great Plains while warming much of the rest of the United States. Greater precipitation is expected in the Northwest. |
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