From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Cliff Mass
The atmospheric river currently over the Gulf of Alaska may be the strongest on record in that area.
The latest model runs show extreme values of the key measure of atmospheric river strength, vertically integrated moisture transport (IVT), which describes how much water vapor is being moved over a period of time.
Below is the map of IVT for this morning, with values exceeding 1900. I have personally never seen anything like it.
An estimate of the strongest atmospheric river over observed for 1990-2019 by Dr. Lexi Henny of NASA/Goddard suggested this is the strongest atmospheric river during that period of record. Impressive.
The plume of moisture was very apparent in water vapor satellite imagery this afternoon (below). Do you see the southwest-northeast directed plume aimed at SE Alaska and BC? Some of the associated clouds have moved into Washington.
This atmospheric river is predicted to hit land as an AR-5, the strongest level observed. We can be thankful that the center of the river will make landfall north of Washington State, where only AR-2 levels should occur on the northern Olympic Coast.
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By Tuesday, as much as a foot of rain will fall over the coastal terrain of BC
Strong atmospheric rivers are not infrequent over SE Alaska and BC this time of year, with the path of the moisture plumes reaching Washington State in November.
The fact we are in a neutral to La Nina year means that there is a higher probability of more rain than last year (an El Nino year)…something shown for the western Washington lowlands below.
My advice. Make sure you have a decent umbrella.
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Yea, I was watching that here. Impressive
https://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/product.php?color_type=tpw_nrl_colors&prod=epac×pan=48hrs&anim=html5
It’s hard to fathom how much it pours in MacLeod Harbor sometimes. An average October has 36″ of rain.
Well, technically, that’s only half a fathom.
What year did anyone I trust start measuring atmospheric river over the Gulf of Alaska?
Oh, yeah.
“An estimate of the strongest atmospheric river over observed for 1990-2019 by Dr. Lexi Henny of NASA/Goddard suggested”
“An estimate … suggested”
So this isn’t the “Strongest Atmospheric River Evah!”?
And it’s CO2 what done it!
That’s just the sin. Fingers will be pointed only at the sinners….we are all doomed
Even though the “sinners” have nothing to do with it.
As usual.
CO2 is the butterfly flapping. Dontchaknow?
“ever observed”… pay attention, folks.
In the simplest possible language how can an Atmospheric River be explained to someone who has never heard of it?
http://www.noaa.gov/stories/what-are-atmospheric-rivers
Thanks Rud some of the things I’ve read made reference to cyclones or others storms, like they were the source of the water. Does an atmospheric river need a cyclone to get started? I guess I don’t understand the source of all that water.
You need to get a little into fluid dynamics.
They used to call them stalled cold fronts. Associated with low pressure systems, they are the main rain bands carrying the moisture of the storm. Nothing new, except promoting the horror of weather must be exaggerated at every chance, or it wouldn’t seem new.
It’s called psycho-linguistic programming, developed by the University of California. They intentionally change the descriptors of known things and events to effect a change in the perception of those things and events.
To paraphrase Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
Thanks doonman, I’m struggling with the source of all that water and is the atmospheric river the result of another storm (cyclone) or can it come into existence on it’s own?
Professor George Lakoff of UC Berkeley. He was the proponent of using language to shape the debate that informed the left, radical left and all their fellow travelers. When you see words and phrased pounded at us daily in the MSM his theories are why it is happening.
Shape the debate ? Like eating cats !
Were the videos posted AI generated?
You mispelled Jackoff.
One reason for calling it a “river” is that a LOT of water is being transported in it. The strongest atmospheric river event in US history was the great flood in California in the early 1860’s, where the Central Valley turned into a lake.
The “Pineapple Express” was a name given to atmospheric rivers originating near Hawai’i before the term “atmospheric river” was first used.
Final note: One key phrase from the top of this post is “in this area”.
The Central valley actually was a lake …it’s better described now as a drained lake
Tulare Lake resumed existence during the two years of Pineapple Express storms of 2022-2023, and there are still a couple large ponds remaining after a year and half of drainage & evaporation. A few times driving LA-SF on I-5 in those years we could see the western edges (shoreline?) very close to the freeway. In the two decades I lived in CA I’d never seen water in the Central Valley while driving that route.
Fun oddity. Tulare lake mostly evaporates. It cannot drain much because under it is an impervious clay pan.
We all know that wind and rain are highly variable. Just listen to farmer talk. Now and then a new record will be set. The big question in the present social mood is – did the new record have any help from the Hand of Man?
That is a very difficult question. Sadly, it attracts diverse commenters from scientists with experience to snake oil salesmen. Discerning which is which is also a difficult question, which WUWT helps to clarify.
Geoff S
I think the weakening Earth’s magnetic field has a lot to do with it. We can expect more “intense” low pressure systems and stronger jet streams as the weakening continues, especially during Solar outbursts. It’s going to be an interesting ride over the next decade or two and no one is sure how it will end.
Exactly! Everybody knows the healing power of magnets.
Thus, the weakening of Earth’s magnetic field explains everything from the appearance of COVID-19, to increased cases of flu worldwide, to the most recent outbreaks of Zika, West Nile, respiratory syncytial, measles and monkeypox viruses. As you say, no one is sure how it will end . . . maybe with a pole flip?
/sarc
If it’s any consolation, these precipitation transports usually don’t bring very cold air with them.
It is quite a sudden summer-to-full-on-autumn effect though.
Australia is copping its over-generous share of rain atm too.
What surprises this old world keeps presenting us with.
AR’s are one of many things that climate models don’t do well, if at all. Per NOAA, the average width of an atmospheric river is 250-375 miles. Per CMIP6, the nominal typical resolution is ~250 miles at the equator. (The ‘best’ are ~100 miles.) Atmospheric rivers can barely be ‘seen’ in CMIP6 model resolution. And they are sufficiently infrequent and varying in location that they cannot be reliably parameterized either.
What you say is correct, Rud, but it leaves open an interpretation which is incorrect. The simple fact is that even if a climate model had a tiny resolution that could ‘see’ things like atmospheric rivers or clouds or storms, that model would still be useless for prediction. And that uselessness would apply to everything, including atmospheric rivers, clouds and storms.
The point is that even though the climate modellers think that climate is probably deterministic (ie, that future climate can be determined from today’s conditions), the complexities are such that for modelling purposes it is non-deterministic (as explained by Edward Lorenz and others).
The current set of climate models, which are all deterministic, will never be able to predict climate.
Chaos theory applies.
Non-linear, chaotic coupled systems simply can not be modeled.
Unless you have a universe sized computer that can accurately and precisely track every photon, every atom, every molecule, every charged particle in real time.
They certainly can be, my PhD thesis describes the successful modeling of just such a system.
Link, pls. Many of us here at WUWT read and critique PhD theses for entertainment (to see if they are better than what we wrote a few decades ago). I’ll bet your thesis included a Monte Carlo analysis. That’s cheating…
A coupled systems is a system of systems.
How does one model chaos when one does not know the random events that are inputs?
AR’s are one of many things that K and her cacks are trying to eliminate.
You’re being too cryptic. But I agree with you.
Prince Rupert is going to wear it again.
and he hasn’t got a Meghan to cover for him like Prince Harry has 🙂
Send some of that moisture to the central U.S. It’s getting a little dry around here.
We have a developing hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and an Atmospheric River coming from the other direction and we are right in the middle, so we’ll probably get some rain out of this. Good!
“AR-5”, huh?
Next thing you know, they will be naming the damn things!
I propose naming this “AR Nick Stokes”, or perhaps “AR Final Nail”. In any event they are all wet.
A professional TV news weatherman could not have phrased it better . . . “probably” and “some” duly noted!
Coming soon to a theater near you: “Hunga-Tonga Eruption Gives Birth to Monster Atmospheric River Attacking Alaska”
Oh, the chills! Oh, the horrors!! You’ll be on the edge of your seat!!!
/sarc
Were you involved in writing the script or merely a star in the production?
Curious minds want to know.
(/humor)
Merely an advisor to the production.
Major contributor, no doubt. Well done!
Somewhat OT… maybe a story tip ??
But does anyone know what has happened to the Arctic sea ice data
NSIDC and OSI both have a several day gap from about 12th to 17th Sept, but after that NSIDC stays about level, but OSI climbs rather quickly.
MASIE doesn’t have the gap in the data, but seems to show a decrease over the last few days.
Something rather odd going on.
> The term atmospheric river can be traced to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology climate scientists whose research was responsible for the first descriptions of the phenomenon in the early 1990s.
I’m not willing to say “largest on record” when the phrase is so new.
Not largest in history, but fairly safe to be the largest on record starting in 1990.
In the meteorological profession “on this side of the Atlantic at least”, the process described is called a “warm conveyor” ….
”A warm conveyor belt (WCB) is a coherent warm and moist airstream, which originates in the boundary layer of an extratropical cyclone’s warm sector. Air within the WCB ascends in a day or two to the upper troposphere while moving poleward.”
The source of this analysis of the process involved suggests that it used to be the case on that side as well:
https://www.weather.gov/media/lmk/soo/Conveyor_Belts.pdf
Thank you. I had forgotten the term conveyor belts were used for what is not termed an atmospheric river.
Obviously new terminology are required to keep the academic publish or perish business thriving.
I’m looking for a ‘conveyor belt’ to shift a mountain of small rock… too bad this one is going to be too far West of me.
Just because none of us have seen something before it doesn’t mean it has never happened before. For example higher sea levels.
No homo sapiens ever witnessed what climatologists have termed “Hothouse Earth” conditions. These occurred in the past, between Ice Ages, and were characterized by absence of ice at both of Earth’s poles. We are currently in the “Quarternay” Ice Age, which began about 2.6 million years ago.
How long has the term “atmospheric river” been used? Never heard of it until a few years ago.
I became aware of the term “Pineapple Express” in the 70’s when I (occasionally) watched the evening news. The weather person liked saying it. In the 90’s “Atmospheric River” started being used instead. My impression was it was a more accurate term than the colorful Pineapple Express. It wasn’t a propaganda term in the context I heard it used.
Thereby illustrating how empty and meaningless the “biggest on record” headlines all are.
The “record,” geologically speaking, is an eyeblink, so “record [fill in the blank]” tells no “climate” indications, just weather.
When you live in the Northwest US, atmospheric rivers are common. We also have to deal with the convergence zone–between the Olympics and the Cascades.
Is it possible that this moisture is causing the slight warming of the ocean in that area?
There was a atmospheric river event in that area back in November of 2021 that
caused a large amount of flood damage during covid –>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Pacific_Northwest_floods
How do I post a Pacific Ocean sea surface temperature map?
I have the source code, but only the code posts in my comment – no map.
Thanks for any helpful guidance on this.
Must tell my son not to get his gyprock delivered next week as planned. We are in the AR3 region.
Check the weather in Haida Gwaii, once the Queen Charlotte Islands, which are in the middle of that atmospheric river satelitte view. Oops, scattered cloud, low POP, seems like weather forecasting is an inexact science….
https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/ca/haida-gwaii
Would welcome some precip over NE Washington State… it has been a long, HOT, VERY dry Late Spring & Summer!