Atmospheric River Reaching California

Atmospheric rivers are narrow corridors or filaments of concentrated moisture in the atmosphere that account for most of the pole-ward transport of water vapor around the globe. Atmospheric rivers consist of narrow bands of enhanced water vapor transport, typically along the boundaries between large areas of divergent surface air flow, including some frontal zones in association with extratropical cyclones that form over the oceans. Atmospheric rivers play a central role in the golbal water cycle. They are the major cause of extreme precipitation events (which may couse severe flooding) in many mid-latitude, westerly coastal regions of the world, including the west coast of North America, western Europe, and the west coast of North Africa. This project illustrates an atmospheric river that developed between 9th and 12th of Dec. 2014, streching across Hawaii to California based on water vapor data and IMERG precipitation data. The animations show the IMERG precipitation data over the white, cloud-like water vapor. Heavy precipitation is shown in shades of red while lighter rains are shown in greens (see the color bar below). In the animation above, the time step (the period) between two consecutive frames represents a quarter of an hour. In the animations below, the time step between two consecutive frames represents half hour.

from NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio: Most Recent Items http://ift.tt/1KPnLS7
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