• Skew-T - How to interpret a Skew-T
    • Graph Lines
      • temperature - white diagonal lines
      • pressure - horizontal line
      • mixing ratio - dotted line customarily has units of g/kg. It is a log scale increasing with temperature.
      • dry adiabatic - curved brown line is the rate at which a parcle would cool or warm if moved vertically assuming no condensation or mixing is taking place (~1C/100m).
      • moist adiabatic - curved dashed green line is the rate at which a parcel of saturated air would cool if moved upwards assuming no mixing with environmental air is taking place (~.6 C/100m).

    • Trace lines
      • Temperature profile - red zigzag line shows the actual temperature measured by the radiosonde.
      • Dewpoint profile - blue zigzag line is calculated from temperature, pressure, and relative humidity from the radiosonde sensors.

    • Important Concepts
      1. Unstable - A lifted or decended parcel will tend to accelerate in the direction of initial motion
      2. Conditionally Unstable - A situation where the stability of a parcel of air is determined by whether or not the air is saturated. The process of condensation or deposition heats the air. This counters the dry adiabatic rate of cooling and so results in a reduced rate of cooling.
      3. Stable - A lifted or decended parcel will tend to return to original altitude

    • Parcel Path of a Lifted Parcel


    • Other Important Terms

    • LCL - Lifted Condensation Level
      LFC - Level of Free Convection
      CAPE - Convective Available Potential Energy
      LI - Lifted Index