Download Name: How`s the Weather? Explore

Name: ____________________
How’s the Weather?
Explore relationships between temperature, pressure, and humidity with daily weather forecasts.
NOTE Bold Items - are background information.
Italicized Items - ask you to manipulate the map in some way.
Questions (paraphrased or restated as part of your answer) and Answers should be recorded in
your journals.
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Map URL: http://bit.ly/earthgeoinquiry13
How do TV weather reporters make their maps?
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Click Modify Map, and then click the Contents button.
Clickthe drop-down arrow next to the Weather Stations layer, and choose Change Style.
Choose to show the Pressure attribute, and click Select for Counts and Amounts (Color).
Click Done to accept the color ramp.
Click the Weather Stations layer name to expose its legend.
1. Which color represents high-pressure air?
- Make sure that the Weather Map Symbols layer is turned on.
- Label the high and low pressure areas on the map by clicking the Edit button.
- Click the text marker labeled H or L.
- Click the map, and type in an H or L to indicate high and low pressure areas. Add at least
three low-pressure “L” and three high-pressure “H” areas.
How do air masses generally move across the country?
- Click the Details button to see the Contents layer again.
- Change the Weather Stations layer style to show the temperatures of the station in a color
scale (red to blue).Click Select for Counts and Amounts (Color), click Options, and then change
the theme to Above and Below. Click Symbols, and then click Fill and find the appropriate color.
- In the Fill tab below the color ramp on the left, click Flip Colors to indicate red for warmer and
blue for cooler temperatures.
2. In which direction does weather move across the United States?
What happens when air masses meet?
- Radiated infrared energy warms air masses over darker ground or at low latitudes. Warm,
moist air expands and rises, and a low-pressure air mass results. Air over lighter-colored
ground (like snow) is generally cooler. Air molecules then pack together, making dense, dry,
high-pressure air. The differential heating of air masses and the pressure difference causes the
winds to blow. Where two air masses of different temperatures and humidity collide, a front is
formed. Weather changes occur when two air masses meet along a front. Whether a cold or
warm air masses is pushing them determines the types of clouds and weather systems.
- Fronts are symbolized for the air that is coming into an area.
- Click the Edit tool. Then, draw a blue line to indicate where cold is advancing eastward, and
draw a red line to indicate where warm air is advancing eastward. These lines indicate fronts
where there are rapid changes in temperature.
3. Describe a warm front.
4. Describe a cold front.
How are precipitation and wind speed studied?
- Air masses flow from high to low pressure.
- Click the drop-down arrow to the right of the Weather Stations layer, and then click Copy.
(you will have a new layer named Weather Stations – Copy).
- On the new layer, change the style, choose AVERASPEED as the attribute and click Options
in the Counts and Amounts (Size) drawing style.
- In the Options window, click Symbols, and switch from Shapes to Arrows. Choose any colored downward arrow and click OK in the symbol box.
- While still in the Options window, scroll down to check the box by Rotate Symbols, choose
ADIRECTION (which represents the wind direction), and ensure that the button by Clockwise
is chosen.
- Click OK, and then click Done.
5. What direction does the wind blow between highs and lows?
How will air masses affect weather in front of them?
6. According to the map, what will the weather be like tomorrow in Boston, Massachusetts?
7. How should a person in Nebraska dress to go to work or school according to the map?
8. How about a person in Minneapolis, MN?