- Industry: Weather
- Number of terms: 60695
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The American Meteorological Society promotes the development and dissemination of information and education on the atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic sciences and the advancement of their professional applications. Founded in 1919, AMS has a membership of more than 14,000 professionals, ...
1. All liquid or solid phase aqueous particles that originate in the atmosphere and fall to the earth's surface. 2. The amount, usually expressed in millimeters or inches of liquid water depth, of the water substance that has fallen at a given point over a specified period of time. As this is usually measured in a fixed rain gauge, small amounts of dew, frost, rime, etc. , may be included in the total. The more common term rainfall is also used in this total sense to include not only amounts of rain, but also the water equivalents of frozen precipitation. For obvious reasons, precipitation is the preferred general term.
Industry:Weather
1. According to the polar-front theory, the semipermanent, semicontinuous front separating air masses of tropical and polar origin. This is the major front in terms of air mass contrast and susceptibility to cyclonic disturbance. Compare arctic front. 2. In oceanography, see Antarctic Polar Front, Arctic Polar Front.
Industry:Weather
1. A weather forecast made for a time period up to 48 hours. The U. S. National Weather Service issues short-range forecasts by part of the day, for example, today, tonight, etc. Compare extended forecast, long-range forecast, nowcast. 2. Same as daily forecast.
Industry:Weather
1. A wave that moves relative to a fixed coordinate system in a fluid; or, in meteorology, a wave or wavelike disturbance that moves relative to the earth's surface. Progressive waves are to be distinguished from stationary waves, which show no relative translation. Standing waves can be treated mathematically as two equal and oppositely directed progressive waves superimposed upon each other. 2. In oceanography, a wave the travel of which can be followed by monitoring the movement of the crest. Energy is transmitted; that is, the wave form travels significant distances, but the water particles perform oscillatory motions. See'' also'' Kelvin wave.
Industry:Weather
1. A wave generated during a storm, usually taken to refer to a wave of great height. 2. Same as storm surge.
Industry:Weather
1. A warning of sustained winds of 48 knots (55 mph) or more either predicted or occurring, not associated with tropical cyclones. The storm-warning signals for this condition are 1) one square red flag with black center by day and 2) two red lanterns at night. 2. Prior to 1 January 1958, a warning, for marine interests, of impending winds of from 28 to 63 knots (32 to 72 mph). 3. A message in plain language broadcast to all Navy ships and merchant ships over appropriate Fleet Broadcasts. The warning gives information on the position, movement, intensity, etc. , of a low pressure center. See small-craft warning, gale warning, whole-gale warning, hurricane warning.
Industry:Weather
1. A spike of ice formed during the freezing of a water drop or a contained volume of water (as in a puddle or freezer container); expansion of the inward freezing ice expels any remaining water through a weak point in the shell which then freezes as a spike in the colder environment. 2. Bright spike of luminous gas extending from the chromosphere into the corona of the sun. Spicules are several hundred kilometers in diameter and extend outward 5000–10 000 km. Observed in photographs of the limb, these features have a lifetime of several minutes.
Industry:Weather
1. A sinuous channel of very high ion density that propagates itself though a gas by continual establishment of an electron avalanche just ahead of its advancing tip. In lightning discharges, the stepped leader, dart leader, and return stroke all constitute special types of streamers. 2. See aurora. 3. A term used to describe a dropsonde observation when, because of either partial or complete parachute failure, the descent speed of the dropsonde exceeds 1500 feet per minute. 4. See snow trails.
Industry:Weather
1. A type of stress characterized by uniformity in all directions. As a measurable on a surface, the net force per unit area normal to that surface exerted by molecules rebounding from it. In dynamics, it is that part of the stress tensor that is independent of viscosity and depends only upon the molecular motion appropriate to the local temperature and density. It is the negative of the mean of the three normal stresses. The concept of pressure as employed in thermodynamics is based upon an equilibrium system, where tangential forces vanish and normal forces are equal. 2. In meteorology, commonly used for atmospheric pressure. 3. In mechanics, same as stress. 4. See radiation pressure.
Industry:Weather
1. A two-dimensional barotropic disturbance in a fluid having one or more discontinuities in the vorticity profile. 2. A wave propagated along the surface of a semi-infinite elastic solid and bearing certain analogies to a surface gravity wave in a fluid.
Industry:Weather
