This month, California is threatened by massive atmospheric rivers which cause chaos here. The wettest winter in recent years has hit this area, decreasing the drought level by 22% in just one week. Record-breaking rain took control over the whole state. Specialists have connected these unusual phenomena with atmospheric rivers. These are narrow corridors of concentrated moisture which are dangling in the atmosphere.
- California is currently confronting with massive atmospheric rivers.
- This weather chaos represents the movement of moisture to the atmosphere of Earth.
- Scientists blame this type of event for major floods and catastrophes.
These weird phenomena may hold up to 15 times more water than the whole amount which flows into the Mississippi River. This event represents a unique movement of moisture through the atmosphere of our planet. An atmospheric river is carrying most of the horizontal water vapor transport outside the tropics.
The suspended watery clouds can stretch to about 250-370 mile. Scientists have connected them to seven floods which took place on the Russian River of California between 1996 and 2007. Some believe that this type of phenomenon is also to be blamed for the “Snowmageddon” event which occurred in 2010 and took over the entire East Coast.
What is more, specialists had also attributed these atmospheric rivers to the largest floods in Britain since 1970s. Last year, scientists linked this type of weather phenomenon to the first massive die-off event. Approximately all wild oysters which lived in northern San Francisco Bay have mysteriously vanished in 2011.
This year, a team of scientists conducted by Duane Waliser, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, have revealed that these huge atmospheric rivers are to be blamed for 75% of all rainfalls and winds which occur on all the coasts of our planet. The team of scientists established a connection between this weather phenomenon and about 65% of the crucial snow and rain events which happened in the Western United States.
These chaotic weather events have also caused approximately 80% of all the great floods which occurred in the state. Last month, state officials called a state of emergency in several California countries because of terrible storms that were connected to atmospheric rivers. This chaos does not indicate that it will slow down. Moreover, there was issued a flood warning which could affect about 14 million people living in California.
The US National Weather Service is claiming that future storms could cause massive floods in the area, reaching locations which had never been flooded before.
Image courtesy of: wikipedia
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.