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Front checklist
Tools for frontal placement
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Satellite: baroclinic waves (warm side of jets); clear for cold front
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Radar: PCPN band shows orientation and motion of fronts
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Charts: thermal advections (700 or 850 WAA or CAA; or 1000-500mb WTA or
NTA), air streams (500mb), jets (250mb), vorticity patterns
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SFC obs: weather element changes (T, P, Td), pressure tendency, T gradient,
wind shift and duration; PCPN type
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Tephi: choose representative sites, airmass, conveyor belts and historical changes
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Hodograph: veering (Warm advection) or backing (cold advection)
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WADS: thermal advection; T gradient
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History
** Front is placed on the leading (warm) edge of the temperature gradient
Movement and direction
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Satellite: cloud movement
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Radar: pcpn belt
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Upper Charts:
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850mb or surface geostrophic wind component perpendicular to the front
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50% of the 500 mb winds (the flow in the base of short wave trough)
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Hodo: may be used to estimate speed and direction
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SFC chart: historical continuity, isallobaric gradient (fronts accelerate where the
pressure tendencies increase, and decelerates where pressure tendencies decrease
as it moves away from the low). Move with speed of cold air near front
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Any changes related to terrain and/or local heat sources and sinks
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Climatology: preferred tracks and locations of lows and highs, and seasonal
frontal areas
Development of new centre
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New vorticity
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Vorticity and thickness advections
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Passage of a short-wave trough over a baroclinic zone
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Development of a new pressure fall centre
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New PFCs and PRCs developing away from the low centre or new height rise
centres and fall centres developing at 500 mb
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Consider topographic influences
 fall    
 cold 
Geopotenti al 
   vorticity advection  
advection decreasing with height
 rise    
 warm 