Equilibrium Level (EL) is the height where the temperature of a freely rising parcel of air again becomes equal to the surrounding air. It is found where the saturation adiabat drawn upward from or LCL crosses the temperature curve from right to left. This is the level your energy area analysis changes from red to blue. You may find more than one EL on a certain sounding, just as you may find multiple PEAs and NEAs above LFC. Generally, you can equate EL to be the top of a stratiform cloud layer, but in the case of strong convective activity, over-shooting tops of cumulonimbus clouds may extend through EL by one-third the depth of PEA. For example, if PEA extends from at 4,000 feet all the way to an EL at 32,000 feet, you may calculate the maximum convective cloud tops to be as high as 41,300 feet.

So far we have looked at methods of com-puting the levels different types of clouds will form. However, analyzing clouds on the Skew T includes more than calculating where clouds will form. We must also be able to determine what layers already exist and what types of clouds are in the layers. This information will help the forecaster to predict the sky cover accurately. In the next section we will see how to determine where cloud layers should already exist and what types of clouds should be there.

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