Weather Terminology

Here are a few basic weather terms that you may have heard and don’t know what they mean.

Convection: Convection means that an area of t-storms has developed in an unstable part of the atmosphere.

Zonal flow: This Term is used when talking about the jet stream. Zonal means that the strong winds at about 20-30,000ft are blowing west to east. This is important in weather because these types of winds or pressure systems will move very fast and not have a chance to get very strong.

Meridian or Low Zonal: This tells us that these same winds in the jet stream are leaning more towards a north-south component. These types of winds support strong ridges and troughs on the weather map. When this condition happens we can expect to see dry conditions under the ridge and stormy weather under the trough.

Advection: Advection occurs in both moisture and temps. In moisture we say that dry air advection is occurring which means just that the air is dry. If we use moist air advection that tells us moisture is returning to the area. Then there is Cold air advection this means cold air is moving in to an area, where if you here warm air advection then the warmer air from the south is moving into an area.