For the past week, a stationary front has draped itself across the Midwest, separating warm, humid air to its south, from cool, dryer air to its north. Pacific storm systems have moved along that front, unleashing torrents of rain and spreading a thick, gray cloud deck above the region. Brief, sunny interludes have given way to the next system within a few hours, leaving us in dusk-like darkness much of the time.
Here in central Missouri, we have managed to dodge the severe weather, though, as I write this post, we have been placed under a tornado watch. As they have over the past week, thunderstorms are moving in from the west, seemingly hitched to Interstate 70; these "training" storms have produced a soggy landscape with significant flooding in some areas.
On the heals of a severe drought, we are now looking for a few dry, sunny days to cut the grass or tend to the crops. Both the drought and the deluge are/were products of stationary weather patterns that developed in response to the jet stream's course. Throughout the drought, the jet arched far to our north, taking storm systems across southern Canada and the Northern Plains; this spring, it has undulated across central latitudes of North America, sending storms through the Heartland and, in some cases, providing the upper level energy and wind shear that spawn supercells and tornadoes.
