Home Before the Squall, photo by Julie Mansour

Thinking there’s been a lot of rain lately? You’re not wrong! Michigan has experienced a lot of rain over the last few weeks, and mLive meteorologist Mark Torregrossa shares that there are three weather conditions all combining over the Great Lakes that keep the rain machine running:

Over the next 10 days there should be three weather systems moving through the Great Lakes region. Each of these storms should have one to two inches of rain in the heaviest swath of precipitation.

The cause of the wet weather starts with numerous storm systems being born over the northern Pacific Ocean. These storms are hitting the Pacific Northwest coast every three to five days. The storm systems then cross the hotter than average Rockies and drop south into the base of a “U”-shaped bend in the jetstream. This U-shaped area is where storms spin faster and intensify. It’s the area along the jetstream where large-scale weather systems are at their strongest.

The final part to this wet weather scenario is what we call a “wide-open Gulf of Mexico.” Southern winds from the Gulf of Mexico into the Midwest and Ohio Valley bring high amounts of water vapor northward. The strong storm systems use that water vapor to produce heavy rain.

…The total rainfall forecast over the next week, through July 4, 2017 shows NOAA forecasters expect a swath of five to six inch total rain. We will just have to watch where this heaviest rain sets up. Right now it is expected to fall south of the flooded areas in Michigan. It could easily shift north or south a few hundred miles.

Julie caught the Neptune beating the rain in Holland last weekend. View her photo background bigtacular and see more in her slideshow.