Low pressure systems get all the publicity as they are the ones that bring the precipitating weather and are called storm systems. On Wednesday, such a system rapidly deepened over the Midwest before departing to our north early this morning. The featured chart displays the reported mean sea level pressure values from the airport weather stations over the Midwest since Tuesday. It is interesting to notice that while pressure was dropping over some sites, other sites were experiencing an increase in pressure as the high pressure system moved in from our west and strengthened as well. We typically do not think of high pressure systems strengthening at the same time the low pressure system is deepening as well. These changes help to increase pressure gradients, which ultimately drive increased wind speeds.

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Tags:   mslp   pressure