What are they?
An air travel aggregate is a segment of the atmosphere with like moisture and temperature characteristics. These giant spot of atmosphere move around with the general circulation of the atmosphere. The leading edge of these air out masses are where fronts are located. Our cold fronts hang around the leading edge of the continental polar air batch typically. Our warm fronts are typically located along the boundary of the advancing maritime tropical air mass .
We ’ ve already mentioned a few of the names of these air masses, but how are they named ?
Naming an Air Mass
There are 5 types of breeze masses that we can see enter the United States. These are named after the moisture and temperature characteristics of the air multitude.
Reading: Weather 101: Air Masses
Air Mass Source Regions
We rarely see Arctic air masses make it into the lower 48. They typically modify into a Polar air mass in Canada before descending into the United States. This doesn ’ metric ton necessarily mean that we never see them .
| Temperature | Moisture |
|---|---|
| Arctic (Extremely Cold) | Continental (Dry) |
| Polar (Cold) | Maritime (Moist) |
| Tropical (Warm) |
Air Mass Classification Based on Temperature and Moisture
The 5 Types
| Air Mass Name | Air Mass Abbreviation |
|---|---|
| Continental Arctic | cA |
| Continental Polar | cP |
| Continental Tropical | cT |
| Maritime Polar | mP |
| Maritime Tropical | mT |
The 5 Types of Air Masses
You may notice that there is both maritime and continental descriptors for both Polar and Continental temperatures, but not for Arctic. Maritime Arctic ( ma ) DOES NOT EXIST. This is because the extremely cold temperatures of the Arctic air mass does not allow water to stay liquid. It freezes over and becomes a dry Continental air mass.
Air Masses and Unsettled Weather
When these tune masses collide the weather is indisputable to become unsettled. Weather is driven wholly by temperature imbalances. When these publicize masses with different moisture and temperature characteristics meet they can create different types of weather.
Read more: What is the Maritime Industry?
Cold tune shovels warm air up increasing the instability which can lead to storms. Dry air shovels moist air upwards leading to increased imbalance a well .
We will dive into more contingent with these 5 types of publicize masses in future episodes of Weather 101. We will explore where each of these come from, and what character of weather they can bring when they move over us .
