Do you know the difference between an Occluded Front and a TROWAL?

We had a good question come in (thanks Ernesto!) asking if we could help him understand the difference between an “Occluded Front” and a “TROWAL”. I think Conrad lays this out pretty clearly here…

Hangaaar’s Pilot Tip – Occluded Front vs TROWAL

[00:00:00] I have a question here from Ernesto. Great question. What’s the difference between an occluded front and a TROWAL?Well, a TROWAL stands for trough of warm air loft, and it is the feature that occurs at an occluded front where the warm air is cut off from the ground. So it isn’t like there’s a difference between the two.

[00:00:28] A TROWAL is a feature when occluded front and an occluded front simply means you have 2 colder air masses that come together and cut the warm air off from below. And typically when that happens, if you look at it in cross section, the warm air lies in V-shaped structure. At the top of the front and that’s a TROWAL… and you think of a TROWAL as a trough, sort of like an elongated V-shaped [00:01:00] hole and just like you would dig a hole in the ground.

[00:01:04] And that’s what a TROWAL is. So hopefully that has answers your question.