The map above is a satellite image of Cairo. As you can see there are only a few clouds around Cairo, with a huge cloud just off Egypts coast over the Mediterranean Sea. There must be a low pressure system there. In this image blue clouds are indicated to be high, cold clouds, while gray clouds are lower, warmer clouds. There are a mix of both these clouds around this area of Egypt. From this satellite image you can also see where the dry desert is located compared to the lush green area of the Nile Valley.
Above is a Global Surface Analysis image of Africa. This map shows current frontal high and low pressures. A high pressure is indicated with the blue "H", while the low pressure system is indicated with the red "L". There are two high pressure systems and one low pressure system, around the northern part of Africa. There seems to be stronger winds around the high pressure system on the left because the isobars are closer together. If you don't know what isobars are, they are lines of constant pressure. Therefore the closer they are to each other, the stronger the winds will be. Although there are stronger winds in the north western part of Africa, you can tell that the winds are weak in central and Southern Africa from the spacing of the isobars. Due to numerous factors like, pressure gradient force, coriolis and friction, winds from a high pressure will blow in a clockwise swirling motion out toward the low pressure system causing clouds and rainy weather. As you look to the bottom right hand corner of this image you will see a blue and red line with blue triangles and a red semi circle. This line is called a stationary front. A stationary front occurs when two air masses push together, but neither one is powerful enough to move the other. Winds blow parallel to the front, helping it stay in place. 
Here is the same Global Surface Analysis image, however it is zoomed so we see just the Middle East instead of all of Africa. In the top right corner we can see a cold front moving east and since the isobars are so close to each other, the winds are blowing fast. If you are not too sure, a cold front is indicated by the blue line. The blue triangles on the line indicate the direction that the front is traveling. If the line was red with red semi-circles, it would indicate a warm front. Similar to the cold front, the red semi-circles point to which direction the front is traveling. Now if we look at Egypt we can see that the isobars are very far apart, indicating slow wind speeds.
Well that does it for this weeks blog post. See ya next week.
How very interesting! I once met some students from Egypt; they told me that their country was very hot during the summer. It seems like Cairo's forecast for March, however, is bearable! With a low chance of precipitation during your five day projected forecast, and a projected high of 77 for March 19, it seems like the citizens of Cairo are enjoying wonderful weather! While the temperatures are similar to my country of study, Haiti, the precipitation levels are not. Port-au-Prince has an estimated precipitation level around 16%, Cairo has very little to no precipitation. Formation of lows and highs, as well as movement of cold fronts and warm fronts are different than that of the Caribbean. Fronts that affect Haiti typically form over the Continental US, but it seems that fronts that affect Egypt form over the Mediterranean Sea.
ReplyDeleteI never really thought that Egypt would be effected by so many high and low weather systems. I really just though that Egypt was hot....all the time. But it ends up that the country im studying, Bangladesh, has a much hotter foretasted temperature than Egypt, going all the way into the 90s. And that is with an expected 4-5 days of thunderstorm. But I do think its really neat to see how H's and L's effect the weather in Egypt because there are no isotherms even close to Bangladesh.
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