What's With Weather Fronts?
This video is a part of Animated Atmosphere, a suite of short videos produced by the UCAR Center for Science Education with FableVision Studios.
A weather front can cause clouds and storms with rain or snow. After a front passes, there might be a change in weather such as cooler air or blue skies. Weather fronts are places where different air masses meet. An air mass is a large area of the troposphere where the air has a similar temperature and moisture. There are different types of fronts. Cold fronts occur where a cold air mass pushes into a warm air mass. Warm fronts occur where a warm air mass pushes up and over a cold air mass.
Transcript
A weather front is the zone
where two different air masses come together at the Earth's surface.
Each air mass has its own temperature and humidity traits,
which can cause turbulence at the front that creates clouds and storms.
When a front passes over an area, it can impact the weather, bringing rain
or snow, temperature changes, thunderstorms, gusty winds, and tornadoes.
A cold front happens when a cool air mass advances into a warm air mass.
The heavier, cool air pushes under the lighter warm air,
causing it to rise up and produce clouds and thunderstorms.
Cold fronts move quickly, bringing gusty winds
and rapid temperature drops as they pass through.
There can also be heavy rain with hail, thunder and lightning.
A warm front occurs when a cold air mass is replaced with warm
air that pushes up and over the cold air.
Warm fronts move slowly than cold fronts because the cold, dense
air is tougher to push over.
Warm fronts bring humid, moist air, increased temperatures and light
precipitation.
Fronts move across the Earth's surface over several days,
guided by high winds like jet streams, and their path can be changed by landforms
such as mountain ranges.