The Relationship Between the Atmospheric River Strength and Impacts Scale to Extratropical Extreme Storms

Abstract:

Ralph et al. 2019 (Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc.) introduced the atmospheric river (AR) strength and impacts scale. Corringham et al. 2019 (Science Advances) then showed how ARs account for 84% of western US flood damages on average, reaching 95-99% along many coastal regions and that the damages scaled logarithmically with the AR ranking using the AR Scale. Median damages associated with landfalling AR1 and AR2 events were minimal but were $260 million in AR5 storms.

In addition, several recent papers have explored the close relationship between ARs and strong extratropical cyclones (EC), including spatial relationships between ARs and the ECs, the co-occurrence of rapidly deepening cyclones and strong ARs, as well as the co-occurrence of ARs and strong surface winds [Waliser and Guan 2017 (Nature Geoscience), Eras-Barca et al. 2018 (Earth System Dynamics), Zhang et al. 2019 (Geophysical Research Letters) and Zhang et al. 2020 (in review)].

This presentation will summarize the AR scale and its relationship to extreme ECs and to flooding.