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American Meteorological Society
Industry: Weather
Number of terms: 60695
Number of blossaries: 0
Company Profile:
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, ...
The rate at which the atmospheric pressure rises or falls locally. See pressure tendency.
Industry:Weather
Mass of spray (dust) swept up and around the base of a waterspout (tornado). See also cascade.
Industry:Weather
A term for the smoothing process used by J. C. Bloxam (1860). He described it as follows: “The method is founded on the fact that, in meteorology, the mean of 10 or 11 consecutive days gives more correctly the normal constant value for the middle day of the series, than the middle day itself gives; and then the value for every day in the year having been calculated upon this principle, the whole series of amended values can in turn be subjected to the same process; and this process may be reiterated until the daily values are brought to sufficiently regular ascending and descending lines. ” See consecutive mean.
Industry:Weather
A general term to designate apparatus designed to observe the details of weather during thunderstorms.
Industry:Weather
A climatic diagram designed to show the relation between climate and some aspect of life.
Industry:Weather
A climate characterized by the regular recurrence of two distinct rainy seasons annually. This is found in land regions near the equator where the heaviest rains occur shortly after the equinoxes (the equinoctial rains). It may be considered a subdivision of the tropical rain forest climate.
Industry:Weather
(Or, simply, bubble. ) A small high, complete with anticyclonic circulation, of the order of 80 to 480 km (50 to 300 miles) across, often induced by precipitation and vertical motions associated with thunderstorms. These transitory small highs are relatively cold and are sometimes located behind convective outflow boundaries.
Industry:Weather
Physically indistinguishable from the electron (or positron) but usually restricted to products in nuclear reactions (beta decay). The term was coined by Ernest Rutherford, who discovered that the ionizing radiation emitted by uranium consisted of “at least two distinct types. . . One that is very readily absorbed. . . The α radiation, and the other of a more penetrative character. . . The β radiation. ” Kinetic energies of beta particles range from tens of thousands to millions of electron volts. Because either electrons or positrons are emitted in beta decay, the term beta particle, a relic of an era in which its identity was unknown, is falling into disuse. See alpha particle, gamma ray.
Industry:Weather
A sudden shift of wind to the southeast in the south and southeast parts of Australia, especially frequent on the coast of New South Wales near Sydney in summer. It occurs in the rear of a trough of low pressure that is followed by the rapid advance of an anticyclone from west Australia. After some days of hot, dry northerly wind, heavy cumulus clouds approach from the south, the wind drops to calm and then sets in suddenly from the south, sometimes reaching gale force. Temperature at Sydney has fallen from 38°C to 18°C in thirty minutes. The average summer frequency of bursters at Sydney is 32. Similar winds are experienced in the east of South Africa, especially near Durban. Compare norther.
Industry:Weather
The vertical distance above mean sea level of the ivory point (zero point) of a station's mercurial barometer; frequently the same as station elevation. This term is denoted by the symbol Hz in international usage. The value of atmospheric pressure with reference to this level is termed actual pressure.
Industry:Weather