Weakening weather fronts

[Staffordshire]

Hey guys,

quick question and i didnt think it was appropiate for any other threads so made a new one...

Why is it that bands of rain/snow can carry on for hundreds of miles on land in the USA, whilst keeping or gaining intensity like the current snowstorm, then fronts very often die out quickly when they hit land over here?

Cheers

[Allseasons-si]

Hey guys,

quick question and i didnt think it was appropiate for any other threads so made a new one...

Why is it that bands of rain/snow can carry on for hundreds of miles on land in the USA, whilst keeping or gaining intensity like the current snowstorm, then fronts very often die out quickly when they hit land over here?

Cheers

Hi Staffordshire

i think it's because they have a greater landmass to aid convection from and no hills and mountains to break up/weeken the systems where as we have the spine of the country with such that break up or weaken them plus we are a tiny island with not much land mass

i think that's about right but some eperienced folk could do a better job at explaining,good question though.

[Staffordshire]

Hi Staffordshire

i think it's because they have a greater landmass to aid convection from and no hills and mountains to break up/weeken the systems where as we have the spine of the country with such that break up or weaken them plus we are a tiny island with not much land mass

i think that's about right but some eperienced folk could do a better job at explaining,good question though.

thanks for the reply? i had thought of topography but then what about sierra nevada? Infact most of western usa?

[Terminal Moraine]

The primary reason is the huge difference in temperature between the polar air to the north and the moist sub tropical air to the south. The boundary between the two provides a huge amount of energy to fuel the resultant depressions and sustain them over land.

The equivalent on this side of the Atlantic would be temperatures around -30c over Shetland and around 20c over northern Spain and southern France.

[Staffordshire]

Ahh yea i can make sense of that actually! thanks for the help!