Translations:Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Nature/Weather - Advanced/6/en
3. What are cold fronts and warm fronts? How do they move and what weather conditions do they produce?
Cold Fronts
A cold front is defined as the leading edge of a cooler and drier mass of air. The air with greater density wedges under the less dense warmer air, lifting it, which can cause the formation a narrow line of showers and thunderstorms when enough moisture is present. This upward motion causes lowered pressure along the cold front. On weather maps, the surface position of the cold front is marked with the symbol of a blue line of triangles/spikes (pips) pointing in the direction of travel. Cold fronts can move up to twice as fast as warm fronts, and produce sharper changes in weather than warm fronts, since cold air is denser than warm air it rapidly replaces the warm air preceding the boundary. Cold fronts are typically accompanied by a narrow band of showers and thunderstorms. Cold fronts are usually associated with an area of low pressure, and sometimes, a warm front.