Rivers in the sky’ have drenched California, yet even more extreme rains are possible
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For the last two winters, a steady succession of these giant “rivers in the sky” have dumped record-breaking and drought-busting precipitation across the state, while simultaneously causing catastrophic floods, landslides, and dangerous blizzards.
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Recently, researchers confirmed that 51 atmospheric rivers hit the West Coast during the 2023-24 rainy season — significantly more than the 38 atmospheric rivers that hit during the 2022-23 rainy season, according to new data from the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes.
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“This year was abnormally normal,” Hecht said. “We like to talk about California being the land of extremes, where it’s either extremely dry or extremely wet. This year was abnormal because it was fairly close to normal through April 1,” the date that typically marks the end of California’s wet season.
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Hecht said it’s not immediately clear why so many atmospheric rivers this season included thunderstorms, but he said higher ocean surface temperatures — a signature of the El Niño weather pattern — could have helped spur the unstable convective pattern.
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