A wake low, or wake depression, is a mesoscale low-pressure area which trails the mesoscale high following a squall line. Due to the subsiding warm air associated with the systems formation, clearing skies are associated with the wake low. Once difficult to detect in surface weather observations due to their broad spacing, the formation of mesoscale weather station networks, or mesonets, has increased their detection.Severe weather, in the form of high winds, can be generated by the wake low when the pressure difference between the mesohigh preceding it and the wake low is intense enough. When the squall line is in the process of decay, heat bursts can be generated near the wake low. Once new thunderstorm activity along the squall line ends, the wake low associated with it weakens in tandem.
Wake lows form due to adiabatic warming in the wake of mature squall lines at the back edge of their rain shields, where evaporative cooling is unable to offset warming due to atmospheric subsidence, or downward motion. They can be caused by gravity waves which duct through boundary layers which are deep and cold to the north of a weather front. As with mesoscale high-pressure areas behind a squall line, when new thunderstorm development stops along the squall line, the wake low will weaken as well. Clearing conditions will accompany the wake low, due to the descending warm air mass associated with the feature. Within the United States, these systems have been observed to form in the Mississippi river valley, Southeast,Florida, and Great Plains.