College Level Meteorology

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If the weather is fair after the barometer rises, it will not last.

It is wet and there is a sudden rise in the barometric pressure, it will not be nice for very long outside.

In England (where these rules took place) the barometer will rise the most for north and east winds.

If the barometer is unsettled or unsteady: •

If the barometer is unsteady, you can expect unsettled weather.

If the barometer says it is rainy and rises to the middle, you can expect a short period of good weather.

If the barometer says good weather and it falls to say changing weather, you can expect bad weather.

So, in most cases a rising or high barometric pressure means the weather will be without precipitation, while a low barometric pressure indicates rain.

WIND FLOW Let's try to put together a better picture of air movement around the earth. You know that warm air rises, so it makes sense that when it does this you will see a low-pressure system on the ground. The air has risen so the pressure near the ground decreases. Like any system of gases, a low-pressure system is ripe for the movement of air around it to be sucked into the low-pressure. This horizontal movement of air is called advection. On the other hand, cool air will fall creating a high pressure zone near the ground. Air in the atmosphere will always flow from an area of high pressure to low-pressure. If you think about it on a molecular basis, it makes sense. High pressure areas mean lots of molecules or molecules with higher kinetic energy; these will naturally travel to low pressure areas with fewer molecules at a lower kinetic energy. Figure 22 shows you how complex it can get when you consider that air masses are moving all over our globe:

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