Study Guide for Weather Quiz/Test
Study notes, activities, and when in doubt of vocab, the textbook.
Sect 24-4 Water in the Atmosphere
 humidity
 relative humidity and how to interpret data
 dew point and how to interpret data
 forms that condensed water takes (dew, frost, fog)
 cloud types (know the meanings of the roots of the words)
cumulus, nimbus, status, alto, cirrus
 differences between hail, sleet, snow, and freezing rain.
 know under what conditions hail, sleet, snow, and freezing rain form.
Sect 24-5 Weather Patterns
 Air masses
 4 types of air masses, their properties, where they come from
maritime tropical
maritime polar
continental tropical
continental polar
 fronts and their characteristic weather, cloud types, typical duration
cold
warm
stationary
occluded
 Low and high pressure centers (a.k.a., Weather Systems)
-Clockwise vs. counter clockwise
-Northern hemisphere vs. southern hemisphere
-Air rises in ______ pressure centers and sinks in _____ pressure centers
-_______ pressure brings rain while ______ pressure bring fair weather.
-Cyclone vs. anticyclone
-Understand the general way in which the air masses and fronts rotate around a low in the
U.S. (see activities) and...
-How does rotation around a low lead to an occluded front?
Sect 24-6 Weather Maps (Be able to interpret them!)
 symbols for fronts and other "stuff" on weather maps
 isotherms and isobars and using them to interpret a map
 be able to determine wind direction around H and L pressure on a map
 meteorology/meteorologist
Weather Self-Test/Practice Questions
1. Use this data to answer questions that follow:
Relative Humidity
Town A
50%
Town B
99%
Town C
75%
Town D
5%
(a) Which town is closest to being saturated? ______
(b) In which town is it probably raining? _______
(c) Which town has the driest air? ______
2. Use this data to answer questions that follow:
Temp (F)
Happy, NJ
52
Sad, NV
52
Boredom, ND
52
Dew Point Temp (F)
48
11
40
(a) By how many degrees does the temperature need to drop for dew to form in Happy,
NJ?___________
(b) In which city is dew most likely to form? ___________
(c) Which city must have the lowest relative humidity? ___________
(d) In which town would frost form if temperature suddenly dropped to the dew
point?___________
3. Name the cloud:
Layered cloud, but raining
High altitude, whispy
Mid-altitude, layered cloud
Mid-altitude, puffy appearance
Puffy, fair-weather cloud
Tall, thunderstorm producing cloud
________________
________________
________________
________________
________________
________________
4. Name the type of precip that most closely matches the description
Sleet
Freezing Rain
Hail
Snow
_________(a) Snow melts in a narrow warm air layer aloft, but has time to refreeze before
hitting the ground
_________(b) Snow melts in a deep (thick) warm air layer aloft, but does not have time to
refreeze while falling. So this type of precip freezes on the ground and on surfaces.
_________(c) This form of frozen precip (> 5mm) forms in cumulonimbus clouds during
thunderstorms.
_________(d) This form of frozen precip falls from clouds when temperatures are below
freezing from the clouds all the way to the ground (i.e., no warm layer aloft)
5. Name the air mass type that is described:
(a) Air masses that come from the north over land in North Dakota are ___________________
___________________.
(b) Air masses that come from the south over land in Mexico are ___________________
___________________.
(c) Air masses that come to NJ from the northeast from over the Atlantic Ocean are
___________________ ___________________
(d) Air masses that come from the south from over the Gulf of Mexico
are___________________ ___________________.
6. Match these descriptions to the type of front (either cold front or warm front)
________ (a) Warm air rises quickly, forming tall cloud formations.
________ (b) Cumulonimbus clouds
________ (c) Nimbostratus clouds near the front boundary.
________ (d) Duration of front passage usually a few hours
________ (e) Duration of front passage usually a few days (increasing clouds then rain)
________ (f) Temperatures higher after passage of front
________ (g) Temperatures drop after it passes
________ (h) Thunderstorms possible
________ (i) Warm air rises more gently
________ (j) Gentle rain (instead of thunderstorms)
7. Front with no net advancement of cold or warm air masses is called a ___________ front.
8. Draw a sketch of what is occurring with air masses at an occluded front:
9. The weather produced at an occluded front is most similar to a [cold; warm; stationary]
front.
10. Draw the map symbols for each of the fronts
Cold
Warm
Stationary
Occluded
11. Occluded fronts occur because of circulation of air around __________ pressure systems.
12. Match each of these statements as correlating with either low pressure or high pressure
systems. Write the word High or Low on the line.
__________ (a) Rainy weather
__________ (b) Fair weather
__________ (c) Clockwise air rotation in Northern Hemisphere
__________ (d) Counterclockwise air rotation in Northern Hemisphere
__________ (e) Clockwise air rotation in Southern Hemisphere
__________ (f) Air moves inward and rises
__________ (g) Air sinks and moves outward
13. Use the map to answer the questions that follow.
C
A
B
(a) The curvy lines on the map are called ______________.
(b) Put “cP” on the map in the U.S. at the location of a continental polar air mass.
(c) Put “mT” on the map in the U.S. at the location of the maritime tropical.
(d) What is the wind direction at location A? ___________
(e) What is the wind direction at location B? ___________
(f) What is the wind direction at location C? ___________
(g) At location B, temperatures will [increase; decrease] during the next few hours.