Atmospheric River Event in Western U.S.: January 6th Update

Hint, if you are using the Firefox browser and can not see the graphics on this post, you will need to turn off tracking protection temporarily to view this post or use another browser. Other browsers may have tracking protection or add ons that might block these graphics. And if you are your cell phone, turn your phone to landscape mode. 

I have been writing recently about the ongoing atmospheric river events (ARE) in California, see for example my January 4th post. I had some questions about the most recent ARE in California, specifically the rainfall totals. I turned to social media accounts from a couple of agencies within the National Weather Service because of their good science, easy to understand graphics with important commentary. For today's article I was looking for a map that I could share with you and I found one on the NWS Weather Prediction Center's twitter page, it was not shared on Facebook. This map (prepared on January 5th) depicts where the highest rainfall totals occurred in darker shades oranges and reds. The lighter amounts are in various shades of green and yellow.

Here are the precipitation totals so far for the series of atmospheric rivers affecting California that began on December 26, 2022. We will add to these totals in the next couple weeks as additional systems are expected. For more data, visit https://t.co/6wTyTSKPbx pic.twitter.com/yNSGtQuFE4

— NWS Weather Prediction Center (@NWSWPC) January 5, 2023

I know that heavy rainfalls, especially on already saturated soils can lead to debris flows on recent burn scars. As I write this I do not know if there have been any debris flows on burn scars, but there may well be some that I do not know about. In any event, I found the following graphics from the National Weather Service IMET Office's Facebook page  dated January 4, 2023 illustrating the danger from debris flows on burn scars. If you click on each image you should be able to see a larger image.

Finally I suspected that there would be more ARE's in the forecast for California. I found this forecast from the NWS Weather Prediction Center, it is in a nice graphic from a January 5th post on the NWS Weather Prediction Center's Facebook page. AREs are forecast for this weekend and again on Monday. If you live in one of the affected areas, please check with your local NWS Weather Forecast Office for the latest forecast and any warnings; get emergency alerts from your local emergency management office, and check your local media outlets for their coverage. Please, please heed any evacuation orders. Turn around don't drown.