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Have enjoyed Mark Eubanks and his staff for years. With sunshine or storms, how far around the world does a "weather front" exist? We "see" weather from the Pacific and we "see" it go East, but how far does the "weather front" exist around the earth? I realize some may only be miles, but which type of weather. Can some types of weather go all around the earth (maybe a cloud from a volcano eruption)? Can some "weather fronts" travel around more than once?
Been wondering about this for years.
Thanks,
Jim C. Lindon, UT
********************************************************** Ok, when Mark is referring to a weather front he's probably talking about a cold front or a warm front. Fronts can extend pretty far as in length. Some fronts may only cover the state of Utah but some can travel very far. For example, often times a stationary front sets up over the front range in Colorado and extends to Texas and then the rest of the front can go clear up the east coast! So yes, fronts can extend thousands of miles.
The jet stream which drives our weather is a fast moving river of air high up in the atmosphere and that extends around the globe.
Your question about volcanic clouds or just ash going into the air is a valid one. When Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991 the ash moved around the globe. Because of the aerosols released, many people saw intensely colored sunsets that year. The volcano put 30 million tons of aerosols into the stratosphere. The cloud of aerosols moved around the earth in roughly 3 weeks but was totally around the globe in about a year. Because of those aerosols, that also impacted the radiation reaching the surface of the earth.
So could the same area of low pressure leave here in Utah and maybe move around and then hit England and who knows, eventually come back again to the United States? Theoretically, it could. Have they in the past? Well that's a research project waiting to happen. There are projects that track the source regions of certain types of clouds and how those move around the world.
Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman.
