It's all in the jet stream

Most of the active weather the past couple of days has been east of the Rockies and in the Plains.  And through Friday, and even Saturday, that's where it's going to stay.

The past couple of nights, thunderstorms have developed near the Nebraska/Iowa area and have turned into fairly large storm systems.  But, we really haven't seen any major impacts from them just yet.  And the reason for that is how the jet stream is placed, and where all the energy lies in the atmosphere.

A ridge of high pressure rests across the Great Lakes and has been acting like a block as thunderstorms track east.  This has caused those storms to turn more southeast, tracking into a better area of moisture and instability in the atmosphere.

Thursday night will be no exception.  While severe thunderstorms with tornadoes have been forming in Colorado and Kansas this evening, eventually those individual storms will form into one large storm complex.  And while we could get some rain early Friday morning, I believe a lot of it will bypass us to the southwest and affect more of southeast Iowa and west-central Illinois.