The West Coast’s rainy season has arrived in force, with an atmospheric river joining a bomb cyclone off the Pacific Northwest coast. Heavy, wet snow began falling in the mountains on Nov. 19, 2024, and rain has been blasting Oregon and Northern California, creating a risk of flooding and landslides in some areas. The atmospheric river was forecast to last for several days, hitting up and down the West Coast. Parts of Washington have seen more than 70 mph winds from the bomb cyclone.
When these two phenomena get together, the weather gets hard to predict, as meteorologist Chad Hecht of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the University of California, San Diego explains.
