May 2, 2014

This weekend Texas and Oklahoma are expected to see some record highs as the jet stream shifts north. This will translate to warmer weather for the east and midwest by next week. The polar jet will hopefully straighten out by later this week, but currently it is forming a trough over the mid eastern United States as seen from this photo below.  This is still causing massive amounts of water vapor off the east coast as you can see by this water vapor map.

Meanwhile in the midwest we still have an overcast sky, and a chance for showers and thunderstorms after 5pm. This is from the approaching low pressure system that was situated North in Canada a these past couple days. The cold front is now pushing down where the trough in the jet stream is seen on the map. This is typical for this inverted omega blocking pattern and high pressure has formed on the outer edges of the polar jet stream as well with centers in New Orleans, Northern California, and New Mexico.

Current temperature is 48 F with dew point at 40 F. Winds are finally out of the west at 9 mph and barometric pressure is 1006 mb 3 less than yesterday. This is a sign of that low pressure moving in from the northwest. This low is also causing the wind to be from the west as it circulates clockwise.