Trixology
Weather => General Weather Discussion => Topic started by: elagache on February 20, 2017, 11:25:46 PM
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Dear WeatherCat users who are curious about atmospheric phenomena,
There is another atmospheric river event happening to Northern California and got a bit tired of hearing the term without understanding what it meant. I had looked before but not found anything particularly descriptive. Wikipedia has a decent starter:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_river (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_river)
The first sentence is a decent way to think about these: "An atmospheric river is a narrow corridor or filament of concentrated moisture in the atmosphere."
However, it doesn't explain too clearly why these things are happening. There is a NOAA description with a decent diagram:
http://www.noaa.gov/stories/what-are-atmospheric-rivers (http://www.noaa.gov/stories/what-are-atmospheric-rivers)
Given the news in California, NPR featured an article on the research of Duane Waliser
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/20/515838078/new-research-shows-how-atmospheric-rivers-wreak-havoc-around-the-globe (http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/20/515838078/new-research-shows-how-atmospheric-rivers-wreak-havoc-around-the-globe)
It turns out that atmospheric rivers also cause more intense winds that expected - something California has also been dealing with da' hard way!
Finally there is an Atmospheric River Portal from the Center for Weather Weather and Water Extremes (CW3E)
http://mead.ucsd.edu/ (http://mead.ucsd.edu/)
There are some predictions on this website that are interesting. Here is the water transport happening with the current atmospheric river:
(http://www.canebas.org/WeatherCat/Forum_support_documents/misc/ivt_USWC_2017-02-20.png)
No wonder it is raining cats and dogs around here!
For your reading pleasure!
Cheers, Edouard [cheers1]
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Just don't step in a poodle! :groan:
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Very interesting post, Edouard. Thanks for sharing.
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Dear X-Air, Blick, and WeatherCat infomaniacs,
Just don't step in a poodle! :groan:
Lucky me, poodles aren't a very popular dog in these parts. Trying to avoid getting wet by stepping into a deeper puddle than you imagined - sadly this is a real hazard!
Very interesting post, Edouard. Thanks for sharing.
It seems that finally atmospheric rivers are getting some attention. That's kind of sad considering apparently California depends on atmospheric rivers for a sizable fraction of our precipitation and until recently most people didn't even know they existed!
Cheers, Edouard [cheers1]