Notes for Meteorology 356

October 13, 2004

 

Junko Kato

Indira Tutuko

 

 

Assignments

Reader: 248-253; 267-269; 292-293; Section VI (296-307); Section VIII (319-381); 335-365.

 

Housekeeping

- Reviewed questions for Midterm 1 and the Grade Distribution Chart

- Writing Assignment 1 due on Friday October 15

 

First we started with looking at the weather map for October 13, 2004 at 17Z. It shows us that western part of United States wasnÕt in low pressure but itÕs in high pressure, which showed us that weÕre moving away from summer pattern.                                                 

            The way the wind blows:

                        High Pressure: Clockwise flow and make a right turn to the extent where                                                     itÕs moving, outward, spiral

                        Low Pressure: Counterclockwise, inward.

 

Besides talking about cold and stationary front, we began to discuss warm front. Warm front is a warm-cold air boundary with the warm air advancing.

 

We also looked at the Plot of 500mb Chart (equal to 18000 feet) at October 13, 2004 at 12Z. ItÕs important to look at this chart because this chart is unaffected by topography (the highest peak in United States is 14000 feet). Wind is stronger at this elevation than the sea level and itÕs between 50 – 65 knots. The differences between those 2 maps are, at 500mb chart, the wind speed is higher, and the wind blow parallel to the isobars and the isobars are closely together.

 

Polar jet stream/storm track: a narrow band of upper atmosphere wind with speeds greater that 57 mph and perform a track that can be use for predicting where the storm generally follow. In the United States, it only comes during the cold season.

 

(From link on class website)

Coriolis Effect: Deflects all FRICTIONLESS MOVING objects to the RIGHT in the Northern Hemisphere and to the LEFT in the Southern Hemisphere.

            á MAXIMUM at the Poles and ZERO at the Equator

                        Examples: airplanes, ocean currents, projectiles, the wind

            á Is, for a given time interval and at a given latitude, GREATER the FASTER the

               speed of the moving object.

            áIs, for a given time interval and at a given latitude, GREATER the FASTER the

  speed of the moving object.

Example: Over a 1-hour interval, a plane moving 1000 mph is deflected

more than a ship moving 20 mph.