Classifying fronts in data from a VHF wind-profiling radar

Many fronts over the UK do not fit the traditional conceptual model of a single maximum of vertical shear of the horizontal wind sloped over the cold air. A 2-year climatology of 296 cold, warm, and occluded fronts from a mesosphere–stratosphere–troposphere radar near Aberystwyth, Wales, reveals that 74% of warm fronts were associated with multiple linear bands representing maxima of vertical wind shear, radar return signal power, or both. In contrast, 51% of cold fronts lacked any such maxima. Similarly, the warm frontal segments of occluded fronts exhibited more banding than the cold frontal segments.