Unraveling the mysteries of consecutive atmospheric river events

In California's 2022-2023 winter season, the state faced nine atmospheric rivers (ARs) that led to extreme flooding, landslides, and power outages—the longest duration of continuous AR conditions in the past 70 years. Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) recently conducted a study using machine learning to understand these complex weather systems better, finding that more intense atmospheric rivers are more likely to occur in succession within a short period of time.