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canyonwalkerOvernight through this morning the SF Bay Area got another atmospheric river rain storm. The colorful and slightly ominous term describes a rain system that comes across the Pacific Ocean— which, since we're basically on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, is pretty damn much every single rain storm we get. Indeed two winters ago we got at least seventeen atmospheric river storms. When news media trumpet a term like "atmospheric river" on something so ordinary it happens about once a week during rainy season it starts to lose meaning.
I remember the first time I heard this term, "atmospheric river", used in weather reporting. It was about 9 years ago and it described a massive storm. There was flooding in the streets all around the Bay Area. Traffic was snarled. Businesses closed. Events were canceled. Did that happen 17 times last year? Hardly.
This time, this morning, there was hardly any of that widespread calamity, either. Though San Francisco did get a tornado warning at 6am (SF Chronicle article, 14 Dec 2024). That's rare. No actual tornado was spotted, though, and the warning was lifted minutes after it was announced. If there had been a tornado it would have been the first in SF in almost 20 years. Instead there were just gusty winds of up to 83mph as measured at SFO airport. Yes, people who know anything about tornadoes beyond alarmist headlines in the news, that's a basically a nothingburger.
For us here in Silicon Valley the storm was, indeed, just an ordinary winter rain storm. We got about 1.5" locally. No drama... except we did get some thunder and lightning overnight. That's unusual here.
I remember the first time I heard this term, "atmospheric river", used in weather reporting. It was about 9 years ago and it described a massive storm. There was flooding in the streets all around the Bay Area. Traffic was snarled. Businesses closed. Events were canceled. Did that happen 17 times last year? Hardly.
This time, this morning, there was hardly any of that widespread calamity, either. Though San Francisco did get a tornado warning at 6am (SF Chronicle article, 14 Dec 2024). That's rare. No actual tornado was spotted, though, and the warning was lifted minutes after it was announced. If there had been a tornado it would have been the first in SF in almost 20 years. Instead there were just gusty winds of up to 83mph as measured at SFO airport. Yes, people who know anything about tornadoes beyond alarmist headlines in the news, that's a basically a nothingburger.
For us here in Silicon Valley the storm was, indeed, just an ordinary winter rain storm. We got about 1.5" locally. No drama... except we did get some thunder and lightning overnight. That's unusual here.
