NOAA Hydrometeorology Testbed

Training San Francisco Bay Area Stakeholders

April 11, 2014

In February, HMT personnel hosted an informal discussion and training session on the current status and anticipated impacts from the first major storm to hit the California for the 2013-2014 winter season. The training was conducted for representatives from selected San Francisco Bay area water agencies as well as other federal, state, and regional water management stakeholders.

HMT personnel demonstrated the storm’s intensity and impacts using the unique observational network that HMT currently has in place across the region as well as other NOAA products. The team also fielded questions about the storm’s location, duration, and timing.

The storm was associated with an atmospheric river (AR, – see Fig. 1) that made landfall on February 7th. Over the course of several days, the AR dropped over 10 inches of rain in places (see Fig. 2) and provided much needed snow pack to the Sierra Nevada Range.

Contact: Rob Cifelli

Figure 1. Water vapor image showing an atmospheric river impacting California on February 9, 2014.

Figure 2. Top: Time-height cross section of precipitation over the HMT Cazadero site in western Sonoma County from February 8-10, 2014. White dashed lines indicate the location of the KPIX TV station radar over Cazadero while the black dashed line shows the corresponding location from the KMUX NEXRAD. Bottom: Accumulated rainfall at Cazadero for same time period using a rain gauge (dark green) and disdrometer (light green).