Uploaded April 2014 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
In mid-February 2014, an intense extratopical storm merged with an atmospheric river and hit the California coast. This three-part animation shows a satellite view of the storm clouds, then a color-coded animation of moisture flowing out of the tropics, and finally, how the atmospheric river banked up against the storm's cold front and moved inland with it. Animation by Dan Pisut, NOAA Environmental Visualization Lab, based on GOES IR imagery from CLASS and total precipitable water data provided by the University of Wisconsin/SSEC MIMIC.
Video produced by the Climate.gov team in cooperation with climate and Earth scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies and institutions. Any opinions voiced by people in these videos are their own; they are not official NOAA statements or opinions. Unless specifically stated otherwise, Climate.gov video productions can be freely republished or re-purposed by others.
In mid-February 2014, an intense extratopical storm merged with an atmospheric river and hit the California coast. This three-part animation shows a satellite view of the storm clouds, then a color-coded animation of moisture flowing out of the tropics, and finally, how the atmospheric river banked up against the storm's cold front and moved inland with it. Animation by Dan Pisut, NOAA Environmental Visualization Lab, based on GOES IR imagery from CLASS and total precipitable water data provided by the University of Wisconsin/SSEC MIMIC.
Video produced by the Climate.gov team in cooperation with climate and Earth scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies and institutions. Any opinions voiced by people in these videos are their own; they are not official NOAA statements or opinions. Unless specifically stated otherwise, Climate.gov video productions can be freely republished or re-purposed by others.
