Explain the airmasses of North America.
Answers
Air Mass Source Regions
To be able to alter the weather conditions over the areas they traverse, air masses come from some of the hottest, coldest, driest, and wettest places on earth. Meteorologists call these air mass birthplaces source regions. You can actually tell where an air mass is from by examining its name.
Depending on whether an air mass forms over an ocean or a land surface it is called:
Maritime (m):Maritime air forms over oceans and other bodies of water and is humid. It is abbreviated by the lowercase letter m.
Continental (c): Continental air originates over land masses, and is therefore dry. It is abbreviated by the lowercase letter c.
The second part of an air mass' name is taken from the latitude of its source region, which expresses its temperature. It is commonly abbreviated by a capital letter.
Polar (P): Polar air is cold and originates between 50° N/S and 60° N/S.
Arctic (A): Arctic air is extremely cold (so cold, it is sometimes mistaken for the Polar Vortex). It forms poleward of 60° N/S.
Tropical (T): Tropical air is warm to hot. It forms at low latitudes, generally within 25° of the equator.
Equatorial (E): Equatorial air is hot and originates along 0° (the equator). Since the equator is mostly devoid of land areas, there is no such thing as continental equatorial air—only mE air exists. Since it rarely affects the U.S., it is not included in this list.