Reading a Weather Map

Have students say which way each front's symbols point before they predict a change. Ask them to compare the temperatures of the towns on each side of the cold front.

Use fronts and pressure centers on a map to predict which towns will cool, warm or get rain. The directions on the page read: Study the map, its key and the box. Then answer the questions on page 2. An answer key is included.

Yes, both. We made it for 6th Grade Earth systems, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with air masses and fronts. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

They are air mass codes. Continental air is dry, maritime air is humid, tropical air is warm and polar air is cold, so mT is maritime tropical and cP is continental polar.

At a cold front, cold air pushes under warm air and forces it up quickly, so tall clouds and thunderstorms form and cooler weather follows. At a warm front, warm air slides gently up over cold air, bringing layers of clouds, light rain and warmer weather.

Wind blows counterclockwise and inward around a low. It blows clockwise and outward around a high, and the weather near a high is usually clear and dry.