What is a verticle profile?

Question

I have to draw a verticle profile (from ground to clouds) of atmosphere during an ice storm. I have to label the temperatures at various heights

How do i draw a verticle profile ? (first explain to me wat it is plz.)

Answer 1

The link provided by the above poster may be a little confusing. If the assignment is the draw a profile of an ice storm, you probably only have to worry about plotting the troposphere.

In the U.S. the standard vertical profile (or sounding) diagram is a Skew-T. Real skew-t diagrams can be found at:

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/upper/

If you are not familiar with skew-t diagrams, there is an online tutorial here:

http://www.met.tamu.edu/class/atmo151/tu...

Once you figure out how to draw a vertical profile, all you have to do is figure out the requirements for an ice storm. If you think about it, it is fairly simple. There has to be a layer of freezing air at the surface deep enough for rain drops to freeze, and a warm layer above it.

I'll leave it to you to figure out how deep the freezing layer needs to be, mainly because I am too lazy to go get my textbook and look it up.

Answer 2

A vertical profile is like a line graph. On the vertical axis, that is where the height is located. I would recommend using either meters, kilometers, or millibars for units. On the horizontal axis, that is where the temperature is located. Use degrees Fahrenheit or degrees Celsius. Then plot all of the values and draw a line to connect them. Its the same idea as plotting values of a function.

Go to this link to get an idea of what it should look like. Don't bother drawing clouds or ground features.

http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~owen/CHPI/IMAG...