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
The sloping of warm air over the cold air leads to a forced uplifting (frontal lifting) of the warm air if one air mass is moving toward the other. In turn, this uplifting causes condensation to occur and the possibility of precipitation along the frontal boundary. Frontal zones where the air masses are not moving against each other are called stationary fronts. In transitional areas where there is some air mass movement, cold or warm fronts can develop. Figure 7r-2 illustrates a vertical cross-section of a cold front.