Listed below are the major concepts that you should know when finished with this unit!
Objective 1: Define instability and describe its effects on the development of storms.
Objective 2: Describe the behavior of positively and negatively buoyant air in terms of vertical motion, and identity the effects on potential storm development.
Positively buoyant air is warmer (and therefore less dense) than the surrounding air. This enables the air to rise freely upward. Only when its temperature equals, and ultimately becomes cooler than the surrounding air will it become negatively buoyant, and begin to descend.
Objective 3: Identify a stable and an unstable atmosphere using a skew-t diagram.
Sounding plots are one of the major tools meteorologists use in convective weather forecasting. You will need to be able to determine whether a sounding represents a stable or unstable atmosphere by comparing the parcel trajectory with the sounding temperature.
Objective 4: Identify the following features on a skew-t:
Objective 5: Describe the formation of a capping inversion and its effects on convection.
Weak to moderate capping inversions can increase the liklihood of severe weather by preventing widespread storm development. This prevents weak updrafts from forming storms; stronger updrafts that are able to penetrate the inversion may explode into severe storms due to less competition for warm, moist air.
but you need to look at the synoptic and mesoscale
features affecting the region as well!
