Meteorology

Meteorology

A database of terms pertaining to the scientific study of the atmosphere.

Industry: Weather

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Meteorology

line vortex

Weather; Meteorology

An idealized, mathematical vortex consisting of the limit of the contraction of a vortex tube to a curve in space. The flow surrounding the curve is assumed irrotational.

An international code assigned to a lightship to identify it as the source of meteorological observations. Lightships are considered fixed observation locations to distinguish them from ships that ...

laminar boundary layer

Weather; Meteorology

An interfacial region in which flow is smooth and nonturbulent. Above a surface, a laminar layer will develop and fluid velocity will increase with distance from the surface, but not indefinitely. At ...

lightning detection network

Weather; Meteorology

An integrated array of lightning direction finders that provide information for trigonometric location of cloud-to-ground lightning discharges. Timing and direction information from individual ...

local lightning-flash counter

Weather; Meteorology

An instrument for counting nearby lightning flashes.

linear instability

Weather; Meteorology

An instability that can be described (to first-order accuracy) by linear (or tangent linear) equations.

Kirchhoff vortex

Weather; Meteorology

An idealized vortex in an unbounded fluid with uniform vorticity inside an elliptical patch and zero vorticity outside. For an ellipse with semiaxes a and b and vorticity ω in its interior, it ...