How To Read A Surface Weather Map

How to read a surface weather map

But how are the boundaries between air masses depicted. When the warm front approaches look for rise in the temperatures and moisture. On weather maps the surface position of the cold front is marked with the symbol of a blue line of triangle shaped pips pointing in the direction of travel and it is placed at the leading edge of the cooler air mass.

Surface Weather Analysis Chart

The warm front is marked on the map with red line with red semicircles cuss pointing the direction the front is moving.

Warm front is a boundary where a warm air is replacing a cold air. Warm fronts usually move from southwest to northeast. Fronts are usually detectable at the surface in a number of ways.

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A station plot always shows the current temperature on the top left dew point on the bottom left and air pressure on the top right. The units for temperature and dew point depend on the source. They show what is happening at a set time where most of us need it at the earth s surface.

Types of weather fronts a weather front is a boundary separating two air masses of different density.

To read air pressure on a surface analysis weather map check for isobars iso equal bar pressure plain curved lines that indicate areas of equal air pressure.
In the section about the origin of wind we have already seen the source of the highs and lows.
Weather maps come in myriads of styles with each providing different levels of information.
Cold fronts come in association with a low pressure area.

Isobars play a major role in determining the speed and direction of wind.

However there are some common features typically found of these images. Weather maps as they appear on tv in a newspaper or here are called surface charts or more correctly mean sea level msl charts. They do not show what is happening at higher levels where the wind flow may be doing something entirely different.

Winds often converge or come together at.

It s called a surface weather analysis map and it shows the positions of high and low pressure systems and the boundaries between warm and cold air called fronts.
On a weather map a warm front is usually drawn using a solid red line with half circles pointing in the direction of the cold air that will be replaced.
We draw lines called fronts.
How to read surface weather maps.