Meteorology

Not quite. The correct answer is B.

Correct answer: B

• A. This describes a cold front passage, not the slow approach of a warm front. Swapping the two fronts' behaviour is the most common error on this style of question.
• B. Correct. This is the classic warm front approach sequence: cloud continues to lower and thicken, precipitation intensifies, and the wind backs and strengthens as the front nears.
• C. This describes airmass instability or the clearance behind a cold front, not the continuing approach of a warm front, which brings layered cloud, not convective breaks.
• D. This describes the moment a cold front passes, or the wrong direction of wind change entirely. Ahead of a warm front the wind backs and temperature has not yet risen.

Not quite. The correct answer is B.

Correct answer: B

• A. This reverses the comparison. Since the parcel cools faster than the surrounding air here, it becomes cooler, not warmer, than its environment as it rises.
• B. Correct. Because the environmental lapse rate is below the saturated adiabatic lapse rate, the rising saturated parcel cools faster than its surroundings and sinks back.
• C. Conditional instability applies when the environmental lapse rate sits between the dry and saturated adiabatic rates. Here it is below the saturated rate too, so this is absolute stability, not the conditional case.
• D. Neutral equilibrium requires the environmental lapse rate to exactly equal the relevant adiabatic rate. 1.2 does not equal 1.5, so the parcel is not neutral.