It is early September, a cold front is moving south across Nebraska. The tempera

Question

It is early September, a cold front is moving south across Nebraska. The temperature before the front are in the low 90's and behind the front the temperatures are in mid 60's. For the past 4 weeks the temperatures have been 10-15 F warmer than normal over Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The skies are currently clear over the Southern Plains. Describe what will happen to the air mass behind the front. Woud you expect the front to bring a relief from the warm temperatures to northern Texas? Explain your reasoning.

Explanation / Answer

A cold front is defined as the transition zone where a cold air mass is replacing a warmer air mass. Cold fronts generally move from northwest to southeast. The air behind a cold front is noticeably colder and drier than the air ahead of it. When a cold front passes through, temperatures can drop more than 15 degrees within the first hour.

As a cold front moves into an area, it displaces warmer air at ground level. Colder air is denser than warm air, so it pushes the warm air higher into the atmosphere. Temperature changes along the boundary of the cold/warm air can be in excess of 50° F

As the warm air rises, it causes an area of low pressure along the cold front. The warm air cools as it rises and moisture begins to condense.

If enough moisture is present, a narrow line of thunderstorms and rain can form along the edge of the cold front. If the cold front boundary is unstable, thunderstorms are more likely. Stable systems often just bring steady rains. Very unstable cold fronts can generate hail storms and even tornadoes.

Here nebraska has lower temperatures and texas has warm temperatures and the two different types of fronts simply indicate which direction those portions of the different air masses are moving.Therefore the air mass behind the front looses temperature very fast so as the front moves towards northern texas and crosses it, the temerature will fall.

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