Thickness



Schematic Illustration Showing the Relation of Thickness Patterns to Fronts

Before we can delve into describing the fronts and their relation to thickness, please be advised, that exact placement of fronts will require careful examination of surface observations. Let’s start with a cold front and its relation to thickness patterns. When viewing the schematic, you can readily see a packing of thickness lines behind the cold front. A cold front is placed on the leading edge of these densely packed lines, which correspond to the leading edge of colder air. Now, let’s take a look at the stationary front and its relation to the thickness lines. Notice again here on the schematic that you still have a packed region of thickness lines, and once again here we place the front on the leading edge of these lines.

The warm front and the occluded front are more difficult to find on one of these maps.

For the warm front, it cannot be readily placed on these maps without the help of surface observations. The difficulty of placing a warm front will come up quite often in the future.

The last front depicted on this schematic is an occluded front. You may notice the thickness lines tend to bulge northwards. Meteorologists call this bulge a thermal ridge, which is labeled for you. The thermal ridge is the prime indicator of an occluded front on a 1000-500mb thickness map.

Please Note: When viewing the schematic, focus on the dashed lines (1000-500mb thickness) and fronts; please ignore the solid lines these will be talked about more in your Meteo 411 class.

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