Broken Isobars?

[JonathanBelles]

Can somebody explain to me why the 1018 isobar is broken in the GOM south of that High?

Thanks in Advance

**Im not sure if that image will change, but put it in imageshack, so I think it will stay the same.

[HURAKAN]

Normal isobars are every four like 1000, 1004, 1008, 1012, 1016, 1020 and so on. Broken isobars usually depict intermediate isobars.

They are mostly used when the normal isobars are very spread out like you see in the figure above.

[JonathanBelles]

Lots of broken isobars here, and they arent spaced out. They look like intermediate isobars.

[wxman57]

Surface maps are normally analyzed to every 4 millibars. Such isobars are typically drawn as solid lines. At times, the analysis will include intermediate isobars spaced very 2 or every 1 millibar. These intermediate isobars will be drawn as dashed lines to distinguish them from the typical spacing. Adding additional intermediate isobars can help to better identify weather features (highs, lows, trofs, fronts).