Thursday October 17, 2024
Newsweek —
If California’s atmospheric river forecast proves true this winter, the state could have enough water to get through another dry summer.
Last winter, the West Coast faced a slew of atmospheric rivers that caused devastating floods and landslides. The storms also brought a deluge of rain that supplemented California lakes and rivers, helping to eliminate the state’s drought. Meteorologists are again predicting a wet winter for the West Coast, according to an AccuWeather report published Monday, with the forecast showing atmospheric rivers impacting northern, central and southern California over the winter.
Atmospheric rivers are a “long, narrow region in the atmosphere—like rivers in the sky—that transport most of the water vapor outside of the tropics,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
California battled years of severe drought before two, back-to-back wet winters in 2022 and 2023 helped alleviate the issue. Paul Pastelok, an AccuWeather senior meteorologist and long-range expert, told Newsweek that another wet winter could prove similarly beneficial for California’s water problem should it come to fruition.