What is the difference between a cold and warm front, and what usually accompanies each?
As a low pressure develops along the polar front – which is basically a warm front since warm air climbs over cold one, the counter-clockwise motion of the air around the low pressure, in the northern hemisphere, pushes the warm front ahead of it and, by pulling the air behind it, creates a cold front. The warm front has a very slack slope. Here, the relatively warmer and moist air from the south, climbs over the polar air. As it moves toward you (usually, mid-latitude low pressures move eastward, taken by the jet streams aloft) you see first high cirrus clouds with “tails” in the same direction (called “mare tails” by sailors). Then a halo around the sun may appear as strato-cirrus move in. Progressively, the clouds get thicker and the ceiling, lower. The wind also increases. Soon there will be drizzle and poor visibility, to be replaced by nimbostratus and cumulonimbus with rain or snow. The cold front moves much faster than the warm one and its slope is much steeper. Here, the cold
