How heat on the Tibetan Plateau fuels powerful storms in California, half a world away

A team of atmospheric scientists says unusually warm early-winter temperatures over the Tibetan Plateau help set up conditions for the powerful atmospheric river storms that have flooded California in recent years, including the notably wet winters of 2016-2017 and 2022-2023. Those storms struck during La Niña years, when forecasters typically expect drier conditions, and no global models using sea-surface temperatures alone predicted the deluges.

The researchers found that warming over the plateau disturbs the jet stream, sending an atmospheric wave eastward that can destabilize conditions over the Pacific and strengthen the moisture-laden corridors known as atmospheric rivers. When they fed observed plateau temperatures into their climate model instead of relying only on ocean data, it reproduced both the plateau warming and the California precipitation.

The team says monitoring the Tibetan Plateau alongside ocean conditions could give water managers and emergency planners more lead time before damaging storm seasons.

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