Climate scientists have long watched the jet stream with fascination and growing concern. These rivers of air racing across our planet at altitudes of roughly 5-9 miles dictate much of our day-to-day weather. Yet recent studies are revealing something ...

Picture this: you're checking tomorrow's weather for the tenth time this week, and each time the forecast has shifted. What started as sunny skies morphed into scattered showers, then back to partly cloudy.

Check out Colorado's strongest wind gusts from Wednesday. And get ready for back-to-back First Alert Weather Days on Thursday and Friday as more damaging wind gusts are possible before the weekend.

Finally, the wavy jet stream became locked in place by persistent high-pressure systems, anchoring storm tracks over the same regions. This led to repeated episodes of heavy rainfall and catastrophic flooding across much of the continental U.S. The same behavior can leave other regions facing days of unrelenting heat waves.