![]() ![]() Swain wants to use his research to prepare California for the potential of megafloods. Plus, this megastorm forecast could also affect Oregon, Washington and western Nevada as well.ĭr. But it only takes one big storm during any year to make a historical impact." "If you go back just a few decades, El Niño has brought more frequent than normal West Coast landfalling atmospheric rivers, whereas in a La Niña, SoCal tends to be drier, and we've seen less frequent atmoriver occurrences. “Compounding the increase in extreme precipitation associated with AR (atmospheric rivers) events are warming temperatures themselves raise the mean elevation of snow accumulation in mountainous areas, increases the instantaneous runoff rates as the rain falls at the expense of snow.” We could a see a trend of these projected extreme rainfall events through 2100. The study also makes a correlation between the frequency of megastorms and a strong and moderate El Niño, which raises the risk of rain on snow events. In a press release from UCLA about the study, if a megaflood happened today, parts of Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno and Los Angeles would become submerged under water. "We need the rain to recharge our parched grounds and dry reservoirs, but dry grounds can only take a certain amount of rain in a period of time, and this type of rain may be too intense for our topography to keep up with these heavily saturated atmospheric rivers.”Ĭlimate change and California megastorm risk. “Even though we’re seeing drier and hotter days throughout the years, storms that do form throughout the year are capable of producing very heavy downpours and can create more hazardous/dangerous situations. Meaning higher rain rates will lead to an increase in mountain runoff, leading to dangerous mudslides and flooding in higher elevations and that water will rush down to the foothills. Talking about climate, she says warmer oceans will lead to increased moisture in the atmosphere. We have also talked to Spectrum News 1 meteorologist Autumn Robertson who’s based out of Los Angeles about this scenario. This means increased runoff could lead to catastrophic flooding, landslides and debris flows, especially in California’s burn scars areas. The paper highlights “that runoff in the future extreme storm scenario is 200-to-400% greater than historical values in the Sierra Nevada because of increased precipitation rates and decreased snow fraction.” That extreme weather event could bring 15 to 35 inches of rain to the state, especially up in the Sierra Nevada, which holds California’s snowpack. The storm they hypothesized could bring waves of atmospheric rivers for one month. He says ARkStorm 2.0 shows the “plausible worst-case scenario extreme storm sequences might look like in the future.” Swain talked about the study in a Twitter Space on Aug. Cumulative 30-day precipitation (mm) during ARkHist (A) and ARkFuture (B) (Science Advances)ĭr.
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