Mesoscale Model Evaluation Testbed
MMET Case: 13 February - 16 February 2011
Case Description
Reason for interest: Strong winter storm over Northerm California associated with an atmospheric river event
A strong winter storm impacted portions of Northern California and the Pacific Northwest over the time period 14-16 February 2011. The event contained two periods from 0400 UTC 14 February - 0800 UTC 15 February and 1400 UTC 15 February - 1800 UTC 16 February. During these times a 500mb cyclone was present over the Gulf of Alaska with southwesterly flow over the U.S. West Coast accompanied by defined atmospheric rivers (AR) making landfall over Norther California. This case occured during the NOAA HMT-West experiment and was well sampled by multiple radars, rawinsondes and GPS receivers.(Kingsmill et al. 2013)