The Associated Press quoted a meteorologist with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center saying the jet stream’s been “on steroids” so far this year.
Really?
“It’s normally really strong this time of year,” said Chris Jakub, a meteorologist with the Wichita office of the National Weather Service.
They’re strong, Jakub said, because there can be significant differences in temperatures between warm and cold air masses.
When the edge of this large weather system moved through Wichita on Monday and dumped nearly two inches of rain on parts of the city, the storm cells were moving at 50 miles an hour. But that’s not unusual for early spring storms, Jakub said.
And it’s why meteorologists have long said it can be dangerous to try to outrun tornadoes in a vehicle – because they can be traveling 50 or 60 miles an hour or more in the early spring.
As much as a foot of rain fell in parts of the Midwest earlier this week, but Jakub said that’s not because the jet stream is any stronger than usual. Storms just kept moving over the same areas – known as “training” because it’s as if the cells are on a set of railroad tracks – and that allowed the rainfall totals to soar.