Welcome Guest. Sign in or Signup

Greetings,

My understanding of fronts is that they are air masses cold overtaking a warm (cold front) or a warm overtaking a cold (warm front). I understand why this happens. But how do fronts play a role with stability? Is a warm front more stable or less stable than a cold front, and visa versa. 

thanks,

 

Ace Any FAA Written Test!
Actual FAA Questions / Free Lifetime Updates
The best explanations in the business
Fast, efficient study.
Pass Your Checkride With Confidence!
FAA Practical Test prep that reflects actual checkrides.
Any checkride: Airplane, Helicopter, Glider, etc.
Written and maintained by actual pilot examiners and master CFIs.
The World's Most Trusted eLogbook
Be Organized, Current, Professional, and Safe.
Highly customizable - for student pilots through pros.
Free Transition Service for users of other eLogs.
Our sincere thanks to pilots such as yourself who support AskACFI while helping themselves by using the awesome PC, Mac, iPhone/iPad, and Android aviation apps of our sponsors.

1 Answers



  1. Skyfox on Jan 03, 2018

    A warm front is more stable than a cold front. Warm air is less dense than colder air and wants to rise above it. When a warm front moves into an area, the warm air slides up over the top of the colder air and wants to stay there. That results in stratus type clouds that form a flat even blanket over the area, sometimes with rain (nimbostratus) and very stable air, although poor visibility. When a cold front moves into an area it pushes underneath the warmer air, forcing it upwards into colder air above which makes the warm, less dense air want to continue to rise. That rise into lower temperature and pressure air causes it to expand, cool, condense, and form rain with towering cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds. That condensation of water vapor into liquid rain also releases the heat that was required to vaporize the water in the first place, called the latent heat of condensation. That heat further drives the vertical rise, which combined with the cold front underneath leads to very unstable air. Fortunately, that instability tends to clean up the air and make good visibility outside of areas of precipitation.

    +3 Votes Thumb up 4 Votes Thumb down 1 Votes


The following terms have been auto-detected the question above and any answers or discussion provided. Click on a term to see its definition from the Dauntless Aviation JargonBuster Glossary.

Answer Question

Our sincere thanks to all who contribute constructively to this forum in answering flight training questions. If you are a flight instructor or represent a flight school / FBO offering flight instruction, you are welcome to include links to your site and related contact information as it pertains to offering local flight instruction in a specific geographic area. Additionally, direct links to FAA and related official government sources of information are welcome. However we thank you for your understanding that links to other sites or text that may be construed as explicit or implicit advertising of other business, sites, or goods/services are not permitted even if such links nominally are relevant to the question asked.