Meteorological Characteristics and Overland Precipitation Impacts of Atmospheric Rivers Affecting the West Coast of North America Based on Eight Years of SSM/I Satellite Observations

Abstract The pre-cold-frontal low-level jet within oceanic extratropical cyclones represents the lower-tropospheric component of a deeper corridor of concentrated water vapor transport in the cyclone warm sector. These corridors are referred to as atmospheric rivers (ARs) because they are narrow relative to their length scale and are responsible for most of the poleward water vapor transport at midlatitudes. This paper investigates landfalling ARs along adjacent north- and south-coast regions of western North America. Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) satellite observations of long, narrow plumes of enhanced integrated water vapor (IWV) were used to detect ARs just offshore over the eastern Pacific from…

• NO
  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• UG
  U.S. Geological Survey