Describe the typical air masses that affect North America. Give their source regions, physical characteristics and properties, and typical directions of movement
What will be an ideal response?
Continental polar: cP, cold dry and stable. Source region—high latitude North America over continents.
Maritime polar: mP, cool, moist, unstable conditions. form over northern oceans and moves generally southward.
Maritime tropical: mT, form over tropical waters in the Gulf/Atlantic and the Pacific. Both warm and humid, but stability differs between source regions—more unstable in Atlantic. The Pacific ones move generally eastward and the Gulf/Atlantic ones move northward and eastward to impact the continent.
Continental tropical: cT, hot, low relative humidity, stable, occurs in summer over Central America and southern U.S. This moves northeastward but generally not extensively.
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