On the Kalamazoo River this weekend, Michigan residents will kayak down the sparkling waters and cast their lines for smallmouth bass. The relaxing summer day will bear little resemblance to July 25, 2010, when a ruptured pipeline spewed a million gallons of crude oil into a nearby creek. Five years and billions of cleanup dollars after the worst inland oil spill in U.S. history, the river is largely revitalized. Resuscitated wetlands hug the river, while three new boat launches and man-made rapids draw paddlers, fishers and weekenders.
a result, the angle of the frontal boundary is not as severe as a cold front and the warm air climbs slowly over the cooler air. This produces layered clouds like stratus and nimbostratus clouds. Far in advance of the front cirrostratus and cirrus clouds form. Warm fronts form clouds that cover a large area and create rain or snow events that
A stationary front forms when a cold front or warm front stops moving. This happens when two masses of air are pushing against each other but neither is powerful enough to move the other. Winds blowing parallel to the front instead of perpendicular can help it stay in place. A stationary front may stay put for days. If the wind direction changes the front will start moving again, becoming either a cold or warm front. Or the front may break apart. Because a stationary front marks the boundary between two air masses, there are often differences in air temperature and wind on opposite sides of it. The weather is often cloudy along a stationary front and rain or snow often falls, especially if the front is in an area of low atmospheric pressure. On a weather map, a stationary front is shown as alternating red semicircles and blue triangles like in the map at the left.