French Weather Terminology

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wembley
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French Weather Terminology

Unread post by wembley »

I have a copy of the "New Glenans Sailng Manual" from the 1970s. It is a French manual and although it is primarily about sailing, there is a section about weather. It may be due to translation from the French, but low pressure systems have interesting terminology such as a "head sky", which is the high cloud that precedes a trough low or front (analogous to say the Nor'west Arch that Canterbury gets ahead of a cold front) "body sky" (this is the main body of the disturbance or the warm and cold fronts themselves) and the "wake sky" (post cold frontal showers, rather like what Dunedin gets in a strong SW with fine periods interspersed with passing showers).

Most interesting.
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