Not sure what to flair this as, so I just put it as ‘other’
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A cold front is when a blob of cold air moves into relatively warmer air: the leading edge is called the front.
A warm front is when a blob of warm air moves into relatively cooler air.
In the mid-latitudes (the continental U.S.) this process driven by areas of low pressure (and the energy of the jet stream); the center is marked by a L on weather maps.
If the low pressure is strong, it will be generating enough wind to move both warm and cold air masses around it in a counter-clockwise direction. Typically the warm air is to the southeast of the center, and the cold, the west.
Sometimes there’s so much cold air back there that it starts to fully wrap around the low pressure center, “outracing” the warm air coming north. This is the occluded front.
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