Mastering Geoscience Animation Transcript

This is a transcript of the video on the Student Features page.

When air masses of different temperatures meet, they do not mix readily; instead, an abrupt boundary, known as a front, forms.

Cold fronts.

Where a cold air mass advances into an area of warmer area, a cold front develops. As the cold air mass advances, notice that it displaces the lighter warm air upward. As air rises along the cold front, it undergoes adiabatic cooling. This cooling typically leads to cloud formation and precipitation along, and just behind, a cold front.