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Landfalling Atmospheric Rivers, the Sierra Barrier Jet, and Extreme Daily Precipitation in Northern California's Upper Sacramento River Watershed
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  • Personal Author:
  • Description:
    The upper Sacramento River watershed is vital to California's water supply and is susceptible to major floods. Orographic precipitation in this complex terrain involves both atmospheric rivers (ARs) and the Sierra barrier jet (SBJ). The south-southeasterly SBJ induces orographic precipitation along south-facing slopes in the Mt. Shasta-Trinity Alps, whereas landfalling ARs ascend up and over the statically stable SBJ and induce orographic precipitation along west-facing slopes in the northern Sierra Nevada. This paper explores the occurrence of extreme daily precipitation (EDP) in this region in association with landfalling ARs and the SBJ. The 50 wettest days (i.e., days with EDP) for water years (WYs) 2002-11 based on the average of daily precipitation from eight rain gauges known as the Northern Sierra 8-Station Index (NS8I) are compared to dates from an SSM/I satellite-based landfalling AR-detection method and dates with SBJ events identified from nearby wind profiler data. These 50 days with EDP accounted for 20% of all precipitation during the 10-WY period, or 5 days with EDP per year on average account for one-fifth of WY precipitation. In summary, 46 of 50 (92%) days with EDP are associated with landfalling ARs on either the day before or the day of precipitation, whereas 45 of 50 (90%) days with EDP are associated with SBJ conditions on the day of EDP. Forty-one of 50 (82%) days with EDP are associated with both a landfalling AR and an SBJ. The top 10 days with EDP were all associated with both a landfalling AR and an SBJ.

  • Document Type:
    Journal Article
  • Collection(s):
    Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR)
  • Main Document Checksum:
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      Description:
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      Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 97(8), 1427-+.
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      Description:
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      Geophysical Research Letters, 43(10), 5345-5352.
      Series:
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      Description:
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      Published Date:
      2016
      Source:
      Earth System Science Data, 8(2), 383-413.
      Series:
      CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
      Description:
      The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) is a synthesis of quality-controlled fCO(2) (fugacity of carbon dioxide) values for the global surface oceans and coastal seas with regular updates. Version 3 of SOCAT has 14.7 million fCO(2) values from 3646 data ...
      File Type:
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      Published Date:
      2017
      Source:
      International Journal of Climatology, 37(1), 197-203.
      Series:
      CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
      File Type:
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      Atmospheric Environment, 140, 298-310.
      Series:
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      Description:
      Ice formation in orographic mixed -phase clouds can enhance precipitation and depends on the type of aerosols that serve as ice nucleating particles (INPs). The resulting precipitation from these clouds is a viable source of water, especially for reg...
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      Personal Author:
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      Published Date:
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      Geoscientific Model Development, 9(9), 3447-3460.
      Series:
      CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
      Description:
      The phrasing of the first of three questions motivating CMIP6 - "How does the Earth system respond to forcing?" - suggests that forcing is always well-known, yet the radiative forcing to which this question refers has historically been uncertain in c...
      File Type:
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    13. Characterizing Recent Trends in U.S. Heavy Precipitation
      Personal Author:
      Hoerling, M.; Eischeid, J.; Perlwitz, J.; Quan, X. W.; Wolter, K.; Cheng, L. Y.;
      Published Date:
      2016
      Source:
      Journal of Climate, 29(7), 2313-2332.
      Series:
      CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
      Description:
      Time series of U.S. daily heavy precipitation (95th percentile) are analyzed to determine factors responsible for regionality and seasonality in their 1979-2013 trends. For annual conditions, contiguous U.S. trends have been characterized by increase...
      File Type:
      Filetype[PDF - 9.93 MB]
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      Personal Author:
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      Published Date:
      2016
      Source:
      Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 16(7), 4743-4756.
      Series:
      CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
      Description:
      Multi-instrument, ground-based measurements provide unique and comprehensive data sets of the atmosphere for a specific location over long periods of time and resulting data compliment past and existing global satellite observations. This paper explo...
      File Type:
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      Personal Author:
      Hoell, A.; Hoerling, M.; Eischeid, J.; Wolter, K.; Dole, R.; Perlwitz, J.; Xu, T. Y.; Cheng, L. Y.;
      Published Date:
      2016
      Source:
      Geophysical Research Letters, 43(2), 819-825.
      Series:
      CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
      Description:
      The sensitivity of California precipitation to El Nino intensity is investigated by applying a multimodel ensemble of historical climate simulations to estimate how November-April precipitation probability distributions vary across three categorizati...
      File Type:
      Filetype[PDF - 1.72 MB]
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      Personal Author:
      Mahoney, K.; Jackson, D. L.; Neiman, P.; Hughes, M.; Darby, L.; Wick, G.; White, A.; Sukovich, E.; Cifelli, R.;
      Published Date:
      2016
      Source:
      Monthly Weather Review, 144(4), 1617-1632.
      Series:
      CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
      Description:
      An analysis of atmospheric rivers (ARs) as defined by an automated AR detection tool based on integrated water vapor transport (IVT) and the connection to heavy precipitation in the southeast United States (SEUS) is performed. Climatological water va...
      File Type:
      Filetype[PDF - 2.36 MB]
    17. Radar Rain-Rate Estimators and Their Variability due to Rainfall Type: An Assessment Based on Hydrometeorology Testbed Data from the Southeastern United States
      Personal Author:
      Matrosov, S. Y.; Cifelli, R.; Neiman, P. J.; White, A. B.;
      Published Date:
      2016
      Source:
      Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 55(6), 1345-1358.
      Series:
      CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
      Description:
      S-band profiling (S-PROF) radar measurements from different southeastern U.S. Hydrometeorology Testbed sites indicated a frequent occurrence of rain that did not exhibit radar bright band (BB) and was observed outside the periods of deep-convective p...
      File Type:
      Filetype[PDF - 2.41 MB]
    18. Inaccuracies with Multimodel Postprocessing Methods Involving Weighted RegressionCorrected Forecasts
      Inaccuracies with Multimodel Postprocessing Methods Involving Weighted, Regression-Corrected Forecasts
      Personal Author:
      Hodyss, D.; Satterfield, E.; McLay, J.; Hamill, T. M.; Scheuerer, M.;
      Published Date:
      2016
      Source:
      Monthly Weather Review, 144(4), 1649-1668.
      Series:
      CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
      Description:
      Ensemble postprocessing is frequently applied to correct biases and deficiencies in the spread of ensemble forecasts. Methods involving weighted, regression-corrected forecasts address the typical biases and under-dispersion of ensembles through a re...
      File Type:
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    19. The Role of Springtime Arctic Clouds in Determining Autumn Sea Ice Extent
      Personal Author:
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      Published Date:
      2016
      Source:
      Journal of Climate, 29(18), 6581-6596.
      Series:
      CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
      Description:
      Recent studies suggest that the atmosphere conditions arctic sea ice properties in spring in a way that may be an important factor in predetermining autumn sea ice concentrations. Here, the role of clouds in this system is analyzed using surface-base...
      File Type:
      Filetype[PDF - 2.18 MB]
    20. Pathways to the Production of Precipitating Hydrometeors and Tropical Cyclone Development
      Personal Author:
      Bao, J. W.; Michelson, S. A.; Grell, E. D.;
      Published Date:
      2016
      Source:
      Monthly Weather Review, 144(6), 2395-2420.
      Series:
      CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
      Description:
      Pathways to the production of precipitation in two cloud microphysics schemes available in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model are investigated in a scenario of tropical cyclone intensification. Comparisons of the results from the WRF Mo...
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