Lance Bosart
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
University at Albany, SUNY
| The
focus of this talk will be on surface frontogenesis with an emphasis on
fronts located over sloping terrain adjacent to mountain barriers and
mesoscale fronts found in large-scale baroclinic zones close to coastlines.
In particular, the impact of cold-air damming and differential diabatic
heating on frontogenesis will be considered. After a brief review of a
few basic concepts, the results of two illustrative case studies of intense
surface fronts will be presented. The first case (17-18 April 2002) featured
the passage of a mesoscale "sidedoor" cold front across eastern
New England in which 15-20 C temperature decreases were observed in less
than one hour. The second case (28 February through 4 March 1972) featured
a long-lived front that affected most of the United States from the Rockies
to the Atlantic coast and was noteworthy for temperature contrasts that
exceeded 50 C. |