Extratropical cyclones (ECs) and atmospheric rivers (ARs) impact precipitation over the U.S. West Coast and other analogous regions globally. This study investigates the relationship between ECs and ARs by exploring the connections between EC strength and AR intensity and position using a new AR intensity scale. While 82% of ARs are associated with an EC, only 45% of ECs have a paired AR and the distance between the AR and EC varies greatly. Roughly 20% of ARs (defined by vertically integrated water vapor transport) occur without a nearby EC. These are usually close to a subtropical/tropical moisture source and include an anticyclone. AR intensity is only moderately proportional to EC strength. Neither the location nor intensity of an AR can be simply determined by an EC. Greater EC intensification occurs with stronger ARs, suggesting that ARs enhance EC deepening by providing more water vapor for latent heat release.

A multimodel evaluation of subseasonal‐to‐seasonal (S2S) hindcast skill of atmospheric rivers (ARs) out to 4‐week lead over the western United States is presented for three operational hindcast systems: European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF; Europe), National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP; U.S.), and Environment and Canada Climate Change (ECCC; Canada). Ensemble mean biases and Brier Skill Scores are examined for no, moderate, and high levels of AR activity (0, 1–2, and 3–7 AR days/week, respectively). All hindcast systems are more skillful in predicting no and high AR activity relative to moderate activity. There are isolated regions of skill at week‐3 over 150–125°W, 25–35°N for the no and high AR activity levels, with larger magnitude and spatial extent of the skill in ECMWF and ECCC compared to NCEP. The spatial pattern of this skill suggests that for high AR activity, a southwest‐to‐northeast orientation is more predictable at subseasonal lead times than other orientations, and for no AR activity, more skill exists in the subtropical North Pacific, upstream of central and southern California. AR hindcast skill along the western U.S. is most strongly increased in hindcasts initialized during Madden‐Julian Oscillation (MJO) Phases 1 and 8, and hindcast skill is substantially decreased over California in hindcasts initialized during MJO Phase 4. Skill modulations in the ECMWF hindcast system conditioned on El Niño‐Southern Oscillation phase are weaker than those conditioned on particular MJO phases. This work provides hindcast skill benchmarks and uncertainty quantification for experimental real‐time forecasts of AR activity during winters 2019–2021 as part of the S2S Prediction Project Real‐time Pilot Initiative in collaboration with the California Department of Water Resources.

This study investigates the impact of dynamical downscaling on historical and future projections of winter extratropical cyclones over eastern North America and the western Atlantic Ocean. Six-hourly output from two global circulation models (GCMs), CCSM4 and GFDL-ESM2M, from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) are used to create the initial and boundary conditions for 20 historical (1986–2005) and 20 future (2080–99) winter simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model. Two sets of WRF grid spacing (1.0° and 0.2°) are examined to determine the impact of model resolution. Although the cyclone frequency in the WRF runs is largely determined by the GCM predictions, the higher-resolution WRF reduces the underprediction in cyclone intensity. There is an increase in late-twenty-first-century cyclone activity over the east coast of North America in CCSM4 and its WRF, whereas there is little change in GFDL-ESM2M and WRF given that there is a larger decrease in the temperature gradient in this region. There is a future increase in relatively deep cyclones over the East Coast in the high-resolution WRF forced by CCSM4. These storms are weaker than the historical cases early in their life cycle, but then because of latent heating they rapidly develop and become stronger than the historical events. This increase does not occur in the low-resolution WRF or the high-resolution WRF forced by GFDL since the latent heat increase is relatively small. This implies that the diabatic processes during cyclogenesis may become more important in a warmer climate, and these processes may be too weak in existing coarse-resolution GCMs.