How Form 2220 Forecast 2023-2024

You may have heard weather forecasters on television talking about a warm front or a cold front approaching, bringing with it a change in the weather. But what are they going on about? What is a weather front and how does it affect our weather? A weather front is the boundary between two bodies of air with different temperature and humidity. These differences depend on where the air has come from on the globe. For example, air sitting over tropical oceans becomes very hot and humid, while air over the Arctic becomes very cold and dry. That's logical enough, but what happens somewhere like Britain, where our climate is neither tropically warm and humid nor polar cold and dry? Over the Atlantic, these warm and cold air masses often meet. Just like oil and water, they don't mix easily and can become unstable as a result, giving us an active area of weather in which fronts form. When air masses collide, it's impossible to know if we're looking at a warm or cold front. It's only when one air mass dominates that we can distinguish between the two. If the warm air is stronger than the cold air, then this is called a warm front. You may have seen this on TV as a line with red semi circles along it. The semi circles point towards the cold air and the direction in which the front is moving. If the cold air has the upper hand, then it's a cold front, which is shown by a line with blue triangles along it. The blue triangles point towards the warm air and again, in the direction of movement. But what is happening when two opposing air masses meet and what kind of weather does each front produce? On a fine day, if you see a layer...