| A | B |
|---|
| air mass | a large body of air throughout which temperature & moisture content are similar |
| cold front | the front edge of a moving mass of cold air that pushes beneath a warmer air mass like a wedge |
| warm front | the front edge of advancing warm air mass that replaces colder air with warmer air |
| stationary front | a front of air masses that moves either very slowly or not at all |
| occluded front | a front that forms when a cold air mass overtakes a warm air mass & lifts the warm air mass off the ground & over another air mass |
| midlatitude cyclone | an area of low pressure that is characterized by rotating wind that moves toward the rising air of the central low-pressure region |
| thunderstorm | a usually brief, heavy storm that consists of rain, strong winds, lightning, & thunder |
| hurricane | a severe storm that develops over tropical oceans & whose strong winds of more than 120 km/h spiral in toward the intensely low-pressure storm center |
| tornado | a destructive, rotating column of air that has very high wind speeds & that may be visible as a funnel-shaped cloud |
| thermometer | an instrument that measures & indicates temperature |
| barometer | an instrument that measures atmospheric pressure |
| anemometer | an instrument used to measure wind speed |
| wind vane | an instrument used to determine direction of the wind |
| radiosonde | package of instruments carried aloft by balloons to measure upper atmospheric conditions--temp., dew point & wind velocity |
| radar | Radio Detection And Ranging, a system that uses reflected radio waves to determine velocity & location of objects |
| station model | a pattern of meteorological symbols that represents the weather at a particular observing station & that is recorded on a weather map |
