An Air Mass is a large body of air in which the properties are the same in a horizontal direction. Air masses are determined by their temperature and moisture content. There are three different temperature categories for air masses: Arctic (A), Polar (P), and Tropical (T). The three different temperature categories are then paired with either a Continental (c) or a Maritime (m) to represent what moisture that particular air mass holds. Continental is a dry air mass while Maritime is a moist humid air mass. The type of air mass can usually be determined by where the air mass is coming from. For example look at the figure below from one of my text books. Note that most of the time Arctic air will not be associated with Maritime air. This is because Arctic air is so cold it can't not enough moisture to be considered Maritime.
Air masses are important to pay attention to when forecasting because they usually hint to what what the weather is going to be moving in. I wanted to go over air masses because next week I am going to talk about the boundaries of air masses or what are commonly called Fronts! Yayyy! Get excited!!
Photo From:
geospatial.gsu.edu
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