Weather terms starting with I

141 terms

ICE Ice The solid state of water.
Ice Age A time of widespread glaciation.
Ice blink Ice blink White glare on the underside of low clouds indicating presence of ice which may be beyond the range of vision.
Ice Boom A floating structure designed to retain ice.
Ice Bridge A continuous ice cover of limited size extending from shore to shore like a bridge.
Ice Core A cylindrical section of ice removed from a glacier or an ice sheet in order to study climate patterns of the past.
ice crystal Precipitation consisting of small, slowly falling crystals of ice.
Ice Crystals A barely visible crystalline form of ice that has the shape of needles, columns or plates. Ice crystals are so small that they seem to be suspended in air.
Ice Fog Same as Freezing Fog; a suspension of numerous minute ice crystals in the air, or water droplets at temperatures below 0Âº Celsius, based at the Earth's…
Ice Gorge The gorge or opening left in a jam after it has broken.
Ice Jam A stationary accumulation that restricts or blocks streamflow.
ice nuclei Particles that act as nuclei for the formation of ice crystals in the atmosphere.
Ice Nucleus Any particle that serves as a nucleus in the formation of ice crystals in the atmosphere.
Ice patrol ship Ice patrol ship A research ship which performs ice surveys in polar regions.
Ice Pellets (abbrev. IP) Same as Sleet; defined as pellets of ice composed of frozen or mostly frozen raindrops or refrozen partially melted snowflakes.
Ice Push Compression of an ice cover particularly at the front of a moving section of ice cover.
ice rafted detritus continental material transported within a matrix of ice and deposited in marine sediments when the ice matrix melts.
Ice Run Flow of ice in a river. An ice run may be light or heavy, and may consist of frazil, anchor, slush, or sheet ice.
ice sheet a mass of glacier ice that covers a wider area than a glacier does.
ice sheet margin edge of the ice sheet where melting and calving of icebergs occurs.
Ice Shove On-shore ice push caused by wind, and currents, changes in temperature, etcetera.
Ice Storm An ice storm is used to describe occasions when damaging accumulations of ice are expected during freezing rain situations.
Ice Storm Warning This product is issued by the National Weather Service when freezing rain produces a significant and possibly damaging accumulation of ice.
ice streams region within an ice sheet where ice moves towards the ice sheet margin significantly faster than the surrounding ice does.
Ice Twitch Downstream movement of a small section of an ice cover. Ice twitches occur suddenly and often appear successively.
Iceberg A piece of a glacier which has broken off and is floating in the sea.
Icelandic Low A semi-permanent, subpolar area of low pressure in the North Atlantic Ocean. Because of its broad area and range of central pressure, it is an area where…
Icing A coating of ice on a solid object.
Ideal Gas Laws The thermodynamic laws applying to perfect gases.
IFR Instrument Flight Rules
Impermeable Refers to a rock matrix that water cannot infiltrate.
Impervious Not permeable; not allowing liquid to pass through. Resistant to movement of water.
IMPL Impulse- Alternate term for Upper Level System and Shortwave; a general term for any large-scale or mesoscale disturbance capable of producing upward…
Import Data brought into an environment or application which has been exported from another environment or application.
IMPT Important
Impulse (abbrev. IMPL) Alternate term for Upper Level System and Shortwave; a general term for any large-scale or mesoscale disturbance capable of producing…
in Hg Inches of Mercury
In-Cloud Lightning (abbrev. IC) Lightning that takes place within the cloud.
Inactive Storage Capacity The portion of capacity below which the reservoir is not normally drawn, and which is provided for sedimentation, recreation, fish and wildlife, aesthetic…
Inch-Degrees The product of inches of rainfall multiplied by the temperature in degrees above freezing (Fahrenheit Scale), used as a measure of the snowmelting…
Inches of Mercury (or in Hg) Unit of atmospheric pressure used in the United States. The name comes from the use of mercurial barometers which equate the height of a column…
Inches of Runoff The volume of water from runoff of a given depth over the entire drainage.
INCR Increase
INDC Indicate
Index of Wetness The ratio of precipitation for a given year over the mean annual precipitation.
Indian Summer An unseasonably warm period near the middle of autumn, usually following a substantial period of cool weather.
Indirect Hit Generally refers to locations that do not experience a direct hit from a tropical cyclone, but do experience hurricane force winds (either sustained or…
Industrial Consumption The quantity of water consumed in a municipality or district for mechanical, trade, and manufacturing purposes, in a given period, generally one day.
Industrial sector Construction, manufacturing, agricultural and mining establishments.
Infiltration Leakage of ground water into a sewage collection system.
Infiltration Capacity The maximum rate at which water can enter the soil at a particular point under a given set of conditions.
Infiltration Index An average rate of infiltration, in inches per hour, equal to the average rate of rainfall such as that the volume of rainfall at greater rates equals the…
Infiltration Rate The rate of water entry into the soil expressed as a depth of water per unit of time in inches per hour or feet per day.
Inflow Bands Bands of low clouds, arranged parallel to the low-level winds and moving into or toward a thunderstorm.
Inflow Jets Local jets of air near the ground flowing inward toward the base of a tornado.
Inflow Notch A radar signature characterized by an indentation in the reflectivity pattern on the inflow side of the storm.
Inflow Stinger A beaver tail cloud with a stinger-like shape.
Influent Seepage Movement of gravity water in the zone of aeration from the ground surface toward the water table.
Influent Stream Any watercourse in which all, or a portion of the surface water flows back into the ground namely the, vadose zone, or zone of aeration.
infrared brightness temperature (°C) The downwelling atmospheric emission in the 9.9 to 11.4 micrometers band; in general, relatively warmer temperatures imply "thicker" clouds.
Infrared Radiation Electromagnetic radiation whose wavelengths lie in the range from 0.75 micrometer to 1000 micrometers; invisible long wavelength radiation (heat) capable…
Infrared Satellite Imagery This satellite imagery senses surface and cloud top temperatures by measuring the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation emitted from these objects.
Infrastructure Management Board (IMB) ACRF management team that manages the overall budget, planning, user request screening, activity implementation, and impact assessments for the ARM…
Initial Detention The volume of water on the ground, either in depressions or in transit, at the time active runoff begins.
Inland freshwater wetlands Swamps, marshes, and bogs found inland beyond the coastal saltwater wetlands.
Inland Hurricane Warning Issued for interior counties that sustained winds of 74 mph or greater associated with a hurricane are expected within 24 hours.
Inland Hurricane Watch Issued for interior counties when sustained winds of 74 mph or greater associated with a hurricane are possible within 36 hours.
Inland Tropical Storm Warning Issued for interior counties when sustained winds of 39 to 73 mph associated with a tropical storm are expected within 24 hours.
Inland Tropical Storm Watch Issued for interior counties when sustained winds of 39 to 73 mph associated with a tropical storm are possible within 36 hours.
INLD Inland
inorganic chemical composition The chemical composition of an aerosol, with the exception of those with hydrocarbons, and usually including carbides, oxides of carbon, metallic…
Inorganic compound Historically, chemicals that could not be derived from living processes. In modern usage, chemicals that do not contain carbon, although carbonates and a…
Inorganic fertilizer See synthetic fertilizer.
Insolation The solar power density incident on a surface of stated area and orientation, usually expressed as Watts per square meter or Btu per square foot per hour.
Instability A lack of consistent phenotype, usually as a result of uncontrolled genetic changes.
instantaneous radiative flux (IRF) An approach that involves collecting data on the distribution of radiation and the radiatively active constituents of the atmosphere and radiative…
INSTBY Instability- The tendency for air parcels to accelerate when they are displaced from their original position; especially, the tendency to accelerate…
instrument data processing circuit Data processing module that transforms data from the instrument output format into a designed data structure in netCDF format.
Instrument Flight Rules Refers to the general weather conditions pilots can expect at the surface and applies to the weather situations at an airport during which a pilot must…
instrument mentor The technical point of contact for ACRF instrument systems. Mentors are the presumed experts on the instrument and the data it provides.
Instrument Shelter A boxlike structure designed to protect temperature measuring instruments from exposure to direct sunshine, precipitation, and condensation, while at the…
instrumental record data measured using instruments, such as thermometers and rain gauges.
Intangible Flood Damage Estimates of the damage done by disruption of business, danger to health, shock, and loss of life and in general all costs not directly measurable which…
Interbasin Transfer The physical transfer of water from one watershed to another.
Interception The process by which precipitation is caught and held by foliage, twigs, and branches of trees, shrubs, and other vegetation, and lost by evaporation…
Interception Storage Requirements Water caught by plants at the onset of a rainstorm. This must be met before rainfall reaches the ground.
Interflow Lateral movement of water in the upper layer of soil.
interglacial a time interval characterized by lack of glacial ice in mid-latitudes, such as modern Holocene climate.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) The IPCC was established jointly by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization in 1988.
Intermediate Synoptic Times The times of 0300, 0900, 1500, and 2100 UTC.
Intermittent Stream A stream that flows for a portion of the year but occasionally is dry or reduced to a pool stage when losses from evaporation or seepage exceed the…
International Date Line The line of longitude located at 180 degrees East or West (with a few local deviations) where the date changes by a day.
Interplanetary Magnetic Field (abbrev. IMF) In solar-terrestrial terms, the magnetic field carried with the solar wind.
Interpolate To estimate a value within an interval between two known values. This technique is sometimes used with computer models for locations in between the…
Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) The region where the northeasterly and southeasterly trade winds converge, forming an often continuous band of clouds or thunderstorms near the…
Intraseasonal Oscillation Oscillation with variability on a timescale less than a season. One example is the Madden-Julian Oscillation.
INTS Intense
INTSFY Intensify
INTST Intensity
Inundation The flooding of normally dry land, primarily caused by severe weather events along the coasts, estuaries, and adjoining rivers.