Występowanie pokrywy śnieżnej w różnych masach powietrza na przykładzie Legnicy i Zamościa

Abstract

The relationships between the kind of air masses and snow cover occurrence in two stations: Legnica and Zamość were investigated, using daily snow cover depths and daily calendar of air masses for the years 1971-2000. The frequency of the days with snow cover in the different air masses was counted and furthermore, air masses favourable to increases and decreases in snow cover depth were singled out. Snow cover appears most often in arctic and polar-continental air masses. Arctic air is favourable to snowfalls, which lead to increases in the snow cover depth, while polar-continental air guaranties snow sustainment. Polarmaritime air which is the most frequent in Poland during the wintertime can also bring snowfalls, but in this air masses snow does not last long, because polar-maritime air is the most favourable to decreases in snow cover depth.