When you sit down at home in front of the television with your family, you watch the news and then the weather and your children start to ask you all sorts of questions about all the different terminology used by the weather person to describe what should happen tomorrow or the next few days with the weather in your area or in other parts of the country of the world. A weather front is where two air streams meet each other. The air streams will have differing humidity and temperature. Warmer air is less dense and therefore rises up over cooler air. Warmer air expands and gets cooled as it rises. Cooler air holds less water vapor. The water condenses from the atmosphere which forms clouds and can lead eventually to rain.
Most often warm fronts will move from the southeast to the northeast and the air that is behind a warm front is generally warmer and more moist than the air ahead of it. If a warm front passes you will find that the air becomes warmer and has more humidity. In a weather map a warm front is usually shown with solid lines and semi circles at the front of the lines themselves. Cold fronts are defined as the area where cold air masses are replacing warmer air masses. Most often cold fronts will move from northwest to southeast and the air that is behind a cold front is generally colder and drier than the air ahead of it. If a cold front passes you will find that the temperature drops and the air is drier.