"Hugh Newbury" wrote in message
...
On 27/07/10 18:12, Martin Rowley wrote:
"Len Wood" wrote ...
On Jul 27, 4:08 pm, Hugh Newbury wrote:
I know the diagrams of fronts in the books, showing the sloping
boundary
between the warm and cold air, etc. But what do they look like when
they
pass over my garden (a) as seen from the ground, and (b) on the data
from the AWS?


... as Len has hinted, you've asked a question to which entire
chapters of elementary text books are devoted - and still you wouldn't
get the definitive answer!

If you look at this link first (US based, but a good 'primer', and
based on the 'Norwegian' frontal theory which of course has developed
considerably over the past 100 years), then you'll get an idea of the
'ideal' .... then it's a case of looking at each 'real' example in
turn and working out how they behave by comparing your data (and
observation) with the ideal ....

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/gu...rnts/home.rxml

then click on each front etc. .... it's called 'cardboard' meteorology
(from the cut-out models that used to be used in MET training schools
to demonstrate fronts etc.), but you've got to start somewhere :-)

Martin.



Len, Martin, thanks for that. I suspected as much, but there's always a
chance that there's a cunning way of looking at these mysterious things.

Hugh


Fronts are not simple things, we have occlusions, warm fronts, forward
sloping cold fronts, rearward sloping cold fronts, upper cold and warm
fronts, trowals, seclusions etc but with an AWS you will always notice
*something change* when a front goes through, most often wind direction,
dewpoint and temperature.

Cheers,

Will
--