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Why did the rain move from the east?

Posted at 9:57 AM, Oct 01, 2016
and last updated 2016-10-01 09:57:52-04

WEST MICHIGAN-  It’s no secret that it’s been raining over the last several days.  Our pattern has consisted of one of us getting up there for three minutes and basically saying “it’s going to be raining off and on during the day, with cloudy and cool conditions.”

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There is an old meteorologist’s saying that goes “Cut off low, weatherman’s woe.”  Normally you’d expect a storm to last a few hours, or a day or two at the very most.  With cut off lows, rain chances and weather conditions can remain the same for days!  The picture above shows the jet stream with the deeper shades of red and black arrows attached.  The jet stream is normally responsible for moving different storms into our region and changing our weather pattern.  Since this storm has separated itself from the main flow, it’s been difficult to get out of our region and thus, the lengthy period of rainy and breezy conditions.

As a result, you’ve also seen rain showers move in different directions than we’re used to.  We normally look for our storms to come across Lake Michigan and that’s not been the case recently, especially last night and this morning.  Movement around a center of low pressure in the Northern Hemisphere is counterclockwise, so our storm motion has been from the east and southeast as of recent.

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You’ll know this thing is on its way out when our showers move from the northwest, and that looks to be the case tomorrow.  A few trailing showers are possible Sunday, but expect conditions to improve next week.