MIDLATITUDE WEATHER SYSTEMS
PART IV: THE SURFACE-UPPER AIR LINKAGE
Fall 1997
Lecture #30 Scheduled for:
12 NOV 1997 (W)
Recommended Readings from Moran and Morgan (1997):
pages 243-245; 275-276.
Objectives:
- To contrast weather patterns associated with zonal flow and
those associated with meridional flow.
- To explain how a blocking pattern leads to weather extremes.
- To describe the results of the dishpan experiment and how
it simulates the atmospheric circulations.
- To explain the cause of the thermal-wind relation and identify
the characteristics.
- To compare and relate the upper-air pattern with surface weather
features.
Outline:
A. INTRODUCTION
B. RELATING SURFACE & UPPER AIR CIRCULATION SYSTEMS
- Weather Regimes
- Types of Flow Patterns Aloft
- Zonal Flow
- Meridional Flow
- Cut Off Lows
- Blocking Patterns
Last revision 5 December 1997
Produced by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D.
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI 53706
hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu