Lecture 21 Midlatitude Cyclones

Observation Homework Due 11/24

1 2

Midlatitude Cyclones Previous Lecture

Midlatitude Cyclone or Winter Storm
• Cyclogenesis
Air masses and Fronts
• Energy Source
• Air mass formation
• Life Cycle
• Types of air masses
• Air Streams
• Vertical Structure • Types of Fronts
• Storm Hazards • Identifying Fronts
• Formation of Fronts

3 4
 Four Types of Fronts
Warm Front
Cold Front
Stationary Front
Occluded Front
Frontal symbols are placed pointing in the direction of
movement of the front (except in the case of the
stationary front).
5 6
Typical Cold Front Structure
• Cold air replaces warm; leading edge is steep in fast-
moving front shown below due to friction at the ground
– Strong vertical motion and unstable air forms cumuliform clouds
– Upper level winds blow ice crystals downwind creating cirrus and
cirrostratus
• Slower moving fronts have less steep boundaries and less
vertically developed clouds may form if warm air is stable
7 8
Identifying Fronts
Across the front - look for one or more of the following:
1. Change of Temperature
2. Change of Moisture characteristic (RH, Td)
3. Change of Wind Direction
4. Change in pressure readings (falling vs rising
pressure
5. Characteristic Precipitation Patterns
6. Characteristic Cloud Patterns
Typical Warm Front Structure
• In an advancing warm front, warm air rides up over colder
air at the surface; slope is not usually very steep.
• Lifting of the warm air produces clouds and precipitation well
in advance of boundary.
• At different points along the warm/cold air interface, the
precipitation will experience different temperature histories
as it falls to the ground (snow, sleet, fr.rain,& rain).
 Midlatitude Cyclone Cyclogenesis:
More commonly known as a Winter Storm
the Formation of a Cyclone

Cyclones develop along frontal zones because

Cold, heavy air sinks, displacing warm air, which denser, cold air is located at the same height
rises, thus converting potential energy into kinetic as nearby, less-dense, warm air.
energy in the form of a cyclonic wind circulation.
9 10

Energy Source for Winter Storms

Life Cycle of Midlatitude Cyclone

1. Incipient Stage
2. Mature Stage
3. Occluded Stage
4. Dissipating Stage

Temperature Gradients Fuel Cyclogenesis

11 12
 Stationary Front Stationary Front
cP cP

mT mT

Isobars Isotherms
Cyclone begins with a stationary polar Note the two air masses, cP and mT, that are
front that separates cold easterlies and involved in the early formation of this front.
warm westerlies.

13 14

Mature Stage
Incipient Stage

• Cold air continues to move south, and warm air north. Low
• A kink forms on the front and cold air starts to move pressure develops in the center and converging air
southward. Warm air starts to move northward. strengthens the fronts.
15 16
 Weather Map of a Mature Storm Mature Stage
1016
25 1023 14 1020
10 1024
25 1 2 1024

Temperature - 1 0 2 1 1 7 1023 1 8 1025

19 1 0 2 4
30 32 1 0 2 1
13 1020

dashed lines 2 0 1022 22 1 0 2 4 2 1 1 0 2 6

1 9 1025
27 1023
3 2 1023 2 9 1023
31

3 9 1021
28

3 2 1024
2 0 1023
2 9 1023 3 7 1024

Pressure - solid lines

21 1023
1 0 1023 2 2 1022 3 8 1023
30 1021 3 5 1024
3 5 1026

1 9 1023 2 4 1019 4 2 1025

2 4 1021 29 1016 38 1 0 2 1

Fonts - heavy lines

1021 1016
33
18 1022 3 3 1011
25 3 8 1020 45 1025
1014

with barbs
1 4 1019 2 2 1020 1005
42 1009
35 1022
33 1006 4 5 1016 4 8 5 3 1022
16 1 0 2 1 2 4 1013 49 1004
4 1 1002 49 6 4 1020
2 3 1022
3 5 1012
17 4 9 1005 6 3 1013 7 0 1017

25
1020
34 1019
4 1 1014

4 8 1016
7 6 1008
7 2 1005
72 1011
64
Mature Wave Cyclone
74

5 5 1013
75
66 1010
5 5 1013
7 7 1017

17 18

Occluded Stage Occluded Stage

• Cyclone is mature,
precipitation and winds
are most intense.

• Cyclone matures, precipitation and winds become

more intense.
19 20
 Occluded Stage Dissipating Stage

• Cyclone is mature,
precipitation and
winds are most
intense.

• Cyclone continues to occlude (end of life cycle) and

begins to dissipate or weaken.

21 22

Formation of Formation of
Occluded Fronts Occluded Fronts
East of the Rockies - Cold
Occluded Fronts West of the Rockies -
Warm Occluded Fronts

23 24
 Air Mass Modification and the Dry Line Air Steams in Midlatitude Cyclones are
Three Dimensional
• Warm air stream brings warm moist (mT) air in the warm
sector and lifts it over the warm front.

• Cold air stream brings cold moist (mP) air westward to

the north and beneath the warm front to the low
pressure center.

• Dry air stream brings cold dry (cP) air from the north
• Dry air entering eastern Texas from the west encounters west and descends behind the cold front.
warm moist air moving north from the Gulf of Mexico,
resulting the formation of a dry line.

25 26

Warm Air Stream Warm Air Stream

27 28
Cold Air Steam Cold Air Steam

29 30

Dry Air Stream All Three Air Streams

• Warm, Cold, Dry

31 32
 All Three Air Streams
What Causes the Surface Low to Form?
Relationship of Surface and Upper-level Lows
• Another view of air
streams in cyclones When upper-level divergence is greater than
• Warm -red lower-level convergence, more air is taken out at
• Cold - blue the top than is brought in at the bottom. Surface
pressure drops, and the low deepens.
• Dry - yellow

33 34

What maintains the surface low? What Causes the Surface Low?
Imagine a surface low forming directly below an upper level low.

convergence and
divergence aloft
Low
When upper-level divergence
is stronger than lower-level
convergence, more air is
taken out at the top than is
brought in at the bottom.
Surface pressure drops, and
the low intensifies, or
High “deepens.”

Surface convergence Surface divergence Upper level pressure contours

“fills in” the low “undermines” the high
35 36
Vertical Structure of Midlatitude Cyclones Cyclogenesis
• Upper level
shortwave passes.
• Upper level
Upper-level divergence divergence leads to
sfc low.
initiates and maintains a
• Cold advection
surface low. throughout lower
troposphere.
Upper-level low is tilted • Cold advection
westward with height with intensifies upper
respect to the surface. low.
• Leads to more
upper level
divergence.
Temperature advection is key!
37 38

Deepening Lows Tilt Westward with Height

Surface Pressure Changes

Cold air moving in behind the cold front causes

the pressure to rise. Warm air moving over the
warm front causes pressure to fall. Lows at surface are located east of the
corresponding upper-level troughs.
39 40
Deepening Lows Tilt Westward with Height Deepening Lows Tilt Westward with Height

Lows at surface are located east of the Lows at surface are located east of the
corresponding upper-level troughs. corresponding upper-level troughs.
41 42

Storm Track
Vertical Structure of Cyclone
cold
cold cold

warm warm warm

a) Incipient stage, b) mature stage, c) occluded stage.
Thin contours are sea level pressure, thick arrow show
jet-stream level flow. Dashed lines show temperature,
with cold air to the NW and warm to the SE.
43
Storms are steered by flow in the upper troposphere.
The location and strength of the jet-stream flow is
governed in part by the distribution of sea surface
temperature. Thus, el niño influences the storm track.
44
Questions?

45