Aug 11, 2026 · 27 min · 9 segments
In this week's episode: the LLJ, heat index, why the is sky blue (and why it sometimes isn't!) and point rainfall totals. Submit your Weathered Questions to weatheredquestions@gmail.com for Jan &…
Yeah, well, and the low level jets very important, especially for Midwest weather.
Actually, the heating of the day sometimes generates storms, but we get some of those large complexes to roll in at night.
And you might be wondering, wait a second, it can't be the heating of the day causing that something else must be going on.
It's the low-level jet that happens, and it ranges anywhere from 2,500 feet off the ground to about a mile up.
And shortly after sunset, there's a pressure difference that happens from the east coast over till about the Rockies.
And these air parcels start flowing back towards the east and the Coriolis force starts turning it to the north.
Even in the absence of a huge low pressure system, we can still have that happening.
It just probably wouldn't be as strong as it normally would unless we had a low pressure system nearby.
We've got a lot of that going on, but it's also a big driver, not necessarily at night so much here, but if you get a large river of air going at 2,500 feet and storms are rapidly forming, depending on the direction of that wind, you can get some, some, Really viciously rotating storms, if it all lines up correctly, because that air goes from a rather calm ground up into that river of air and turns really quick, you know, 40, 50 miles an hour.
So the importance of that thing is not just for wind shear, but also for transporting moisture from the Gulf up into the Midwest.
It's basically the train that brings those ingredients into the Midwest and trucks them right in and plops them right over the top of us.
Yeah, well, and the low level jets very important, especially for Midwest weather.
Actually, the heating of the day sometimes generates storms, but we get some of those large complexes to roll in at night.
And you might be wondering, wait a second, it can't be the heating of the day causing that something else must be going on.
It's the low-level jet that happens, and it ranges anywhere from 2,500 feet off the ground to about a mile up.
And shortly after sunset, there's a pressure difference that happens from the east coast over till about the Rockies.
And these air parcels start flowing back towards the east and the Coriolis force starts turning it to the north.
Even in the absence of a huge low pressure system, we can still have that happening.
It just probably wouldn't be as strong as it normally would unless we had a low pressure system nearby.
We've got a lot of that going on, but it's also a big driver, not necessarily at night so much here, but if you get a large river of air going at 2,500 feet and storms are rapidly forming, depending on the direction of that wind, you can get some, some, Really viciously rotating storms, if it all lines up correctly, because that air goes from a rather calm ground up into that river of air and turns really quick, you know, 40, 50 miles an hour.
So the importance of that thing is not just for wind shear, but also for transporting moisture from the Gulf up into the Midwest.
It's basically the train that brings those ingredients into the Midwest and trucks them right in and plops them right over the top of us.
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