Editorial Board. Latest Newscasts. Investigate TV. Gray DC Bureau. Breakdown: Why Stationary Fronts Happen. By Sagay Galindo. Updated: Jun. Share on Facebook. Email This Link. Share on Twitter. Share on Pinterest. Share on LinkedIn. The weather is often cloudy along a stationary front and rain or snow often falls, especially if the front is in an area where the pressure is low When you look at the weather map, a stationary front is represented as red semi-circles and blue triangles like on the map below.
Related Content. Most Read. Shooting at Margaritas restaurant leaves one dead. Southwest Tennessee Community College to temporarily go fully virtual. A cold front or warm front that stops moving becomes a stationary front. On a weather map, a stationary front, such as occurs here along the Atlantic Coast of North America, is represented by alternating blue and red line segments with alternating blue triangles and red semicircles.
An Occluded Front forms when a warm air mass gets caught between two cold air masses. The warm air mass rises as the cool air masses push and meet in the middle. Cold fronts often come with thunderstorms or other types of extreme weather. They usually move from west to east. Cold fronts move faster than warm fronts because cold air is denser, meaning there are more molecules of material in cold air than in warm air.
Symbolically, a warm front is represented by a solid line with semicircles pointing towards the colder air and in the direction of movement. On colored weather maps, a warm front is drawn with a solid red line. There is typically a noticeable temperature change from one side of the warm front to the other. Acronym fropa. A cold front does the same thing with a warm air mass. The warm air is forced to rise because it is less dense than the cold air. This causes a surge of rising motion with is known to generate thunderstorms.
Sometimes, these storms can be nasty! How do tornadoes form? Most tornadoes form from thunderstorms. You need warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and cool, dry air from Canada. When these two air masses meet, they create instability in the atmosphere. A cold weather front is defined as the changeover region where a cold air mass is replacing a warmer air mass.
Cold weather fronts usually move from northwest to southeast. The air behind a cold front is colder and drier than the air in front. The boundary where a cold air mass meets a cool air mass under a warm air mass is called an occluded front. At a front, the weather is usually unsettled and stormy, and precipitation is common. How does a stationary front form? What kind of weather does a stationary front bring?
Warm fronts move more slowly than cold fronts because it is more difficult for the warm air to push the cold, dense air across the Earth's surface. Warm fronts often form on the east side of low-pressure systems where warmer air from the south is pushed north. You will often see high clouds like cirrus, cirrostratus, and middle clouds like altostratus ahead of a warm front.
These clouds form in the warm air that is high above the cool air. As the front passes over an area, the clouds become lower, and rain is likely. There can be thunderstorms around the warm front if the air is unstable. On weather maps, the surface location of a warm front is represented by a solid red line with red, filled-in semicircles along it, like in the map on the right B.
The semicircles indicate the direction that the front is moving. They are on the side of the line where the front is moving. Notice on the map that temperatures at ground level are cooler in front of the front than behind it.
A stationary front is represented on a map by triangles pointing in one direction and semicircles pointed in the other direction. A stationary front forms when a cold front or warm front stops moving. This happens when two masses of air are pushing against each other, but neither is powerful enough to move the other.
Winds blowing parallel to the front instead of perpendicular can help it stay in place. A stationary front may stay put for days. If the wind direction changes, the front will start moving again, becoming either a cold or warm front. Or the front may break apart. Because a stationary front marks the boundary between two air masses, there are often differences in air temperature and wind on opposite sides of it.
The weather is often cloudy along a stationary front, and rain or snow often falls, especially if the front is in an area of low atmospheric pressure.
On a weather map, a stationary front is shown as alternating red semicircles and blue triangles like in the image at the left. Notice how the blue triangles point in one direction, and the red semicircles point in the opposite direction.
An occluded front is represented on a weather map by a purple line with alternating triangles and semicircles. Sometimes a cold front follows right behind a warm front.
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