1. What Is a Measure of Water Vapor in the Air? Humidity

1. What is a measure of water vapor in the air? Humidity 2. What is the amount of water vapor in the air at a given temperature expressed as a percentage of the maximum amount of water vapor the air can hold at that temperature? Relative humidity 3. What is a condition in which the upper regions of the atmosphere are warmer than the lower regions? Temperature inversion 4. What is the condensation of water droplets above the earth’s surface? Clouds 5. What is an air-circulation pattern in which air warmed by the ground rises while cooler air aloft sinks? Convectional lifting 6. What is the lifting of air over a topographic barrier such as a mountain? Orographic lifting 7. What is the contact zone between two different air masses? Front 8. What is the lifting that occurs as two air masses converge? Frontal lifting 9. What is the difference between a cold front and a warm front? 10. Explain how convectional lifting plays a role in the formation of cumulus clouds. 11. Are clouds having vertical development characteristic of stable air, stationary air, unstable air, or dry air? 12. Explain how clouds form. 13. What is a temperature inversion? Give examples of where these inversions may occur. 14. Does a rising parcel of air get warmer, cooler, or stay the same temperature? 15. What happens to the water vapor in saturated air as the air cools? 16. As air temperature decreases, does relative humidity increase, decrease, or stay the same? 17. What is the difference between humidity and relative humidity? 18. What cloud form is associated with thunderstorms? 19. How do downdrafts form in thunderstorms? 20. Briefly describe how thunder and lightning develop. 21. What information must be known to predict the weather? 22. Why do clouds tend to form above mountain peaks? 23. Why does warm, moist air blowing over cold water result in fog? 24. Why does dew form on the ground during clear, calm summer nights? 25. Why does a July day in Alabama generally feel much hotter than a July day in TX. 26. What is the source of the enormous amount of energy released by a hurricane? 27. Why are clouds that form over water more efficient in producing precipitation than clouds that form over land? 28. How does a rain-shadow desert form? 29. Explain why freezing rain is more commonly associated with warm fronts than with cold fronts. 30. How do fronts cause clouds and precipitation? 31. What is the difference between rainfall that accompanies the passage of a warm front verses a cold front? 32. Why don’t cumulus clouds form over cold water? 33. What accounts for the large spaces of blue sky between cumulus clouds? 34. How do tornadoes form? 35. Give some statistical data on tornadoes and thunderstorms.