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THE ENVIRONMENT
What Happens When Climate Predictions Get It Wrong?
How atmospheric rivers are rewriting the rules of seasonal forecasting.
Things are changing. For decades, scientists have relied on the to forecast seasonal precipitation in the Western United States. In a nutshell, a strong El Niño typically means wet winters, while La Niña leans toward dry conditions.
I still remember learning about El Niño-La Niña events in middle and high school or, later on, teaching about it to my undergrad students. The thing is that it’s a simple enough framework — except when it isn’t.
The winter of 2023 was a prime example of how nature sometimes refuses to play by the rules. Despite La Niña conditions, which should have brought dryness to California and the Southwest, the region was hit with record-breaking rain and snow.
Quite unexpected.
But what happened? What caused this anomaly?
from scientists at finds that the real disruptor was a series of atmospheric rivers — massive bands of moisture that transport water vapor across the sky like aerial conveyor belts.
