Which can you use to indicate the bearing of...

🔍 Key Concepts

• Hurricane structure – know where different cloud types (cirrus, altostratus, cumulonimbus) tend to form relative to the storm center • Outer cloud bands vs. storm core – which features spread far out and tend to ‘point back’ toward the center? • Traditional mariner’s method for estimating the bearing of a hurricane’s center using visible cloud patterns

💭 Think About

• Ask yourself: which of these cloud features would most logically ‘radiate outward’ from the storm center so that their pattern points back toward it? • Which cloud type listed is usually found in the upper levels of the atmosphere and can extend hundreds of miles from the storm center? • Which choice describes a feature that forms more in the feeder bands or outer shield of the storm, rather than right in the eye wall or central dense overcast?

✅ Before You Answer

• Verify which cloud type (cirrus vs. altostratus) is characteristically found in the high upper troposphere and often appears as thin, fibrous streaks • Consider which feature would give you a geometric line of convergence that can be traced back to the storm’s center • Eliminate any option that depends mainly on local radar echoes or small-scale thunderstorm motions instead of the large-scale storm structure

Which can you use to indicate the bearing of the center of a hurricane or tropical storm?

The direction of movement of thunderstorms on radar

The darkest point of the clouds in the "bar" of the storm

The point of convergence of the cirrus clouds

The point of origin of the altostratus clouds

🔍 Key Concepts

💭 Think About

✅ Before You Answer