Checking for non-preferred file/folder path names (may take a long time depending on the number of files/folders) ...

This resource contains some files/folders that have non-preferred characters in their name. Show non-conforming files/folders.

This resource contains content types with files that need to be updated to match with metadata changes. Show content type files that need updating.

A Modified Atmospheric River Scale for Flood Hazards

Authors:
Owners:		This resource does not have an owner who is an active HydroShare user. Contact CUAHSI (help@cuahsi.org) for information on this resource.
Type:	Resource
Storage:	The size of this resource is 3.0 GB
Created:	May 13, 2025 at 10:41 p.m. (UTC)
Last updated:	Feb 16, 2026 at 2:32 p.m. (UTC) (Metadata update)
Published date:	Feb 16, 2026 at 2:32 p.m. (UTC)
DOI:	10.4211/hs.cee30237618d48e8bb0d09ecff9a4a7c
Citation:	See how to cite this resource
Content types:	Geographic Feature Content CSV Content

Sharing Status:	Published
Views:	1269
Downloads:	98
+1 Votes:	Be the first one to this.
Comments:	No comments (yet)

Abstract

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are key drivers of regional water supply and flood hazard in subtropical and mid-latitude regions, generating interwoven beneficial and hazardous impacts. The original AR scale, developed for early-warning communication, ranks ARs from 1 (“primarily beneficial”) to 5 (“primarily hazardous”) based on atmospheric vapor transport. However, the AR scale does not account for physical processes on the land surface that can strongly influence flood response. Analyzing over 70,000 AR landfalls across 142 catchments in California and central Chile, here we show that runoff efficiency, primarily controlled by antecedent soil moisture, is the dominant source of peak streamflow variability not explained by the AR scale. Based on this insight, we present a simple modification to the AR scale for flood hazards that incorporates antecedent moisture conditions. This modification close to doubles the scale’s correspondence with peak streamflow and increases the number of flood-generating ARs classified as hazardous by over 30%, raising AR flood detection rates to 81% in California and 64% in central Chile. These findings demonstrate that incorporating critical land surface conditions into hazard classification can enhance early-warning tools for communicating hazard likelihood.

See Webb, M. J. et al. Antecedent moisture enhances early warning of atmospheric river flood hazards. Nat Commun https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69286-3 (2026) doi:10.1038/s41467-026-69286-3.

Subject Keywords

Coverage

Spatial

Coordinate System/Geographic Projection:

WGS 84 EPSG:4326

Coordinate Units:

Decimal degrees

North Latitude

42.1440°

East Longitude

-69.7690°

South Latitude

-40.3265°

West Longitude

-124.1170°

Temporal

Start Date:
End Date:

Content

Learn more about the BagIt download

Select a file to see file type metadata.

Data Services

The following web services are available for data contained in this resource. Geospatial Feature and Raster data are made available via Open Geospatial Consortium Web Services. The provided links can be copied and pasted into GIS software to access these data. Multidimensional NetCDF data are made available via a THREDDS Data Server using remote data access protocols such as OPeNDAP. Other data services may be made available in the future to support additional data types.

Web Map Service

https://geoserver.hydroshare.org/geoserver/HS-cee30237618d48e8bb0d09ecff9a4a7c/wms?request=GetCapabilities

Web Feature Service

https://geoserver.hydroshare.org/geoserver/HS-cee30237618d48e8bb0d09ecff9a4a7c/wfs?request=GetCapabilities

Related Geospatial Features

This HydroShare resource is linked to the following geospatial features

Geoconnex, through the Internet of Water: This field allows you to relate this resource to overlapping geospatial features in order to increase the FAIRness and discoverability of your data. Below, collections of reference features within the United States are provided. Search these collections to find features that overlap with your data, or provide a URL that resolves to a geospatial feature not yet in the Geoconnex collections.
Learn more about Related Geospatial Features

We highly recommend that you add Spatial Coverage to this resource before searching for related geospatial features. Otherwise query times can be excessive.

Please note: your resource spatial extent (${(resSpatialExtentArea * 1e-6).toFixed(0)} square kilometers) is larger than a big US state. You might experience reduced performance during your searches.

${ searchResultString }

${ messageObj.message }

${value.text}

Click a point to search for features that overlap with that location.

Select a feature for more information.

Related Resources

This resource is described by

Webb, M. J. et al. Antecedent moisture enhances early warning of atmospheric river flood hazards. Nat Commun https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69286-3 (2026) doi:10.1038/s41467-026-69286-3.

Credits

Funding Agencies

This resource was created using funding from the following sources:

Agency Name	Award Title	Award Number
U.S. National Science Foundation	Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)	Grant No. 1937966
U.S. National Science Foundation	PATHWAYS International Research Experience for Students (IRES)	Grant No. 1954140

How to Cite

Webb, M. J. (2026). A Modified Atmospheric River Scale for Flood Hazards, HydroShare, https://doi.org/10.4211/hs.cee30237618d48e8bb0d09ecff9a4a7c

This resource is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Comments

There are currently no comments

Notifications (${tasks.length})