The importance of atmospheric frontal boundaries to general weather patterns has been known for some time and has been the subject of many studies. Typically, frontal structures are several hundreds of kilometers long and tens of kilometers wide. Imbedded within the larger frontal structures are features that range from a few to approximately ten kilometers in scale. Understanding of these substructures is considered important to furthering our knowledge of the atmospheric factors that determine the exact location, timing and magnitude of mesoscale meteorological phenomena such as locally heavy precipitation events. Using numerical models the Principal Investigator will investigate two important mesoscale aspects of frontal structures. The first is to explain the phenomenon of the collapse of a frontal surface to a very small scale. This process is not well understood, but is important to understanding frontal structures and evolution. A second avenue of research is the effects of topography on fronts. Again, this is an important area of research for understanding frontal evolutions. The Principal Investigator will continue his research as to how fronts are effected by mountains under certain synoptic meteorological environments.
