Last evening, a cold front stretched from the Central Plains to southern Michigan, separating warm, humid air, to its south, from cooler and drier air behind the front. Not associated with a potent storm system, the front was relatively stationary, drifting very slowly to the south and east.
Disturbances along the front produced thunderstorms and, as they mushroomed into higher levels of the atmosphere, these storms were nudged eastward by strong, upper level winds that paralleled the front. In concert, another storm would develop at the disturbance; this ongoing process produced linear bands of thunderstorms which, moving eastward, dropped heavy rains across the same locations.
Such "training" can lead to copious rainfall and local flooding. Two to three inches per hour fell in the Greater Kansas City area while parts of lower Michigan received nearly five inches of rain. Meanwhile, wildfires plague the Southwest and parts of the Southeast remain mired in a multi-year drought.
