Instructions: For each question, click on the radio button beside your answer. When you have completed the entire quiz, click the “Submit my answers” button at the bottom of the page to receive your results.

Question 1:

Which statement about air masses is true?
a) Warm air masses form more quickly than cold air masses.
b) Air masses form in one to two days.
c) Cold air masses begin to form when cold air moves over a warmer surface.
d) Air over colder high-latitude oceans will become moister than air over warm tropical oceans.

Question 2:

Which of the following are characteristics of a maritime tropical air mass?
a) Cold and dry
b) Hot and dry
c) Warm and moist
d) Cool and moist

Question 3:

Which air mass would be responsible for causing a large temperature drop in Ontario in winter?
a) mP
b) mT
c) cT
d) cP

Question 4:

Which of the following areas would NOT be a good air-mass source region?
a) Gulf of Mexico
b) Nunavut
c) North Pacific Ocean
d) Ontario

Question 5:

Which statement about air masses is false?
a) cP air masses can cause lake effect snows downwind of the Great Lakes.
b) mP air masses are more common on the east coast of Canada than the west coast.
c) Convective precipitation can occur in summer within cP air masses.
d) cA air masses only occur in winter.

Question 6:

What would you NOT expect to occur as a front is passing your area?
a) A change in dew-point temperature
b) Clouds and precipitation
c) An increase in pressure
d) A shift in wind direction

Question 7:

What frequently develops in the south-central United States in spring and summer?
a) Pineapple express
b) Dry line
c) mP air mass
d) Siberian express

Question 8:

Which front is drawn on a weather map in two different colours?
a) Cold
b) Warm
c) Stationary
d) Occluded

Question 9:

What category of clouds is common just before a warm front passes overhead?
a) Altostratus
b) Cirrus
c) Nimbostratus
d) Cirrostratus

Question 10:

A process that gradually separates the centre of low pressure from the warm air in a mid-latitude cyclone is known as what?
a) Frontogenesis
b) Occlusion
c) Frontolysis
d) TROWAL

Question 11:

Good air-mass source regions are the regions associated with the large, semi-permanent anticyclones of the general circulation.
a) True
b) False

Question 12:

If the third letter of an air mass symbol is k it means the air mass is colder than the surface below.
a) True
b) False

Question 13:

Frontolysis can occur with surface convergence.
a) True
b) False

Question 14:

The steepest part of the slope of a frontal surface is in the air layer closest to Earth’s surface.
a) True
b) False

Question 15:

In a warm-type occlusion, air behind the cold front pushes under air ahead of the warm front.
a) True
b) False

Higher Education

Weather and Climate: Chapter 13