We'd like to use analytics cookies to understand which symbols people look up, so we know what to research next. They are not used for advertising and we set none of them unless you say yes. What we store.
A skewed thermodynamic diagram that tells a forecaster whether air will rise.
Also known as: Sounding diagram, Skew-T, Slanted grid weather diagram
A chart of temperature against entropy, with a plotted sounding. Its whole purpose is a shape comparison: if the plotted line leans a particular way relative to the printed curves, air lifted from the surface keeps rising, and that is a thunderstorm.
A thermodynamic diagram plotting temperature against entropy on rotated axes, over which the temperature and dew point measured by a radiosonde ascent are drawn.
Contexts: Maps
Read as a comparison of slopes. Where the plotted temperature falls with height faster than the printed lapse-rate curves, a parcel of lifted air stays warmer than its surroundings and keeps rising — which is instability, and is what produces convective storms.
The axes are rotated so that the important comparison is between near-vertical and near-horizontal lines rather than between two similar slopes, which is a design decision about human vision rather than about physics.
A dense grid of straight and curved lines running at several different angles, with two heavy irregular lines plotted across it from bottom to top.