What are cold and warm fronts?

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. Warm fronts usually move from southwest to northeast and the air behind a warm front is warmer and moister than the air ahead of it.

What are warm fronts for kids?

A warm front is a leading edge of a warmer air mass that is advancing into a cooler air mass. Warm fronts usually have stratus and cirrus clouds, but sometimes they also have cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds. Before the warm front passes, there can be rain or snow.

What is an example of warm front?

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.

What is the warm front?

A warm front is the boundary between a mass of warm air and a retreating mass of cold air. At constant atmospheric pressure, warm air is less dense than cold air, and so it tends to override, rather than displace, the cold air.

How cold and warm fronts work?

Sometimes a cold front follows right behind a warm front. A warm air mass pushes into a colder air mass (the warm front), and then another cold air mass pushes into the warm air mass (the cold front). Because cold fronts move faster, the cold front is likely to overtake the warm front.

What is the cold front?

A cold front is defined as the transition zone where a cold air mass is replacing a warmer air mass. Cold fronts generally move from northwest to southeast. The air behind a cold front is noticeably colder and drier than the air ahead of it. On colored weather maps, a cold front is drawn with a solid blue line.

What are the characteristics of cold front?

Cold Fronts

leading edge of sharp temperature change.
moisture content (dew point) changes dramatically.
wind shift (direction and speed)
pressure trough (pressure tendency is useful!!!)
often cloudy/showers/thunderstorms/sometimes severe.

How are warm fronts and cold fronts similar?

The similarities between a warm front and a cold front are: they are both fronts, they both form some type of clouds, they both produce some type of rain, they both make some kind of weather. Therefore, it rides up and over it,producing stratus and nimbostratus clouds where light precipitation falls.

How are cold and warm fronts formed?

What is a cold front simple definition?

noun. the zone separating two air masses, of which the cooler, denser mass is advancing and replacing the warmer.

What is the difference between a cold front and warm front?

A cold front is when the cold air mass takes over the warm air mass, causing it go up into the atmosphere. A warm front is when a warm air mass takes over a cold air mass, leaving warm air.

What happens when two cold fronts meet?

Log in or sign up to add this lesson to a Custom Course. A cold front happens when a colder air mass meets and pushes a warm air mass up. When the two meet, the density of the cold air mass pushes the less dense warm air mass up.

What is a stationary front in weather?

A stationary front is when a warm air mass and a cold air mass meet. The warm air and cold air sit against each other and do not move. The cold air is not able to make the warm air mass move up so the air stays in the same spot.

What is an occluded front in weather?

An occluded front is a combination of two fronts that form when a cold front catches up and overtakes a warm front. An occluded front is represented as a purple line with teeth and half circles. A high pressure system is a whirling mass of cool, dry air that generally brings fair weather and light winds.