Not a Scary Looking Forecast

Good news for everyone that doesn't like precipitation!! Looks like we may have a stretch of tranquil weather for most of this week. Not only tranquil but temperatures will likely be at or even slightly above average which would seem to be something new to us. The reason for the tranquility is that we seem to be going into a more zonal flow. What that means is that the jet stream, for the most part, is traveled west to east on a pretty straight line. The jet stream is the river of air at the top of the atmosphere that controls where weather systems, high pressure and low pressure, go and also has a big influence on temperature.

So how this works in the most basic of terms is that when there are giant kinks in the jet stream like you see in the very first picture below, you will typically have cold air competing with warm air which will create some sort of weather system which will create precipitation. But with no kinks in the jet stream, then cold air stays toward the poles and warm air stays toward the equator and most of the U.S. has generally quiet weather.

This is the jet stream over the next five afternoons starting with Friday. Notice that the jet stream starts with a kink in it (major storm) and then transitions into a straight line (zonal flow).

I hope everyone will enjoy the nicer weather and the sunshine. I love the rain and snow but it will definitely be nice to see the sun for a few days.

~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz