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Warm front
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A warm front is defined as the leading edge of a mass of warm air. Warm fronts move more slowly than the cold front which usually follows due to the fact that cold air is more dense, and harder to remove from the earth's surface. If the warm air mass is stable, clouds ahead of the warm front are mostly stratiform and rainfall gradually increases as the front approaches. At the front itself, the clouds can reach the surface as fog. Clearing and warming is usually rapid after frontal passage. If the warm air mass is unstable, thunderstorms may be embedded among the stratiform clouds ahead of the front, and after frontal passage, thundershowers may continue.
In the northern hemisphere a warm front usually causes a shift of wind from southeast to southwest and in the southern hemisphere from northeast to northwest.
On weather maps, the surface location of a warm front is marked with a red line of half circles pointing in the direction of travel.