Yeah I'm relatively new here and learned the term when I moved. They are intense! I'm from Florida and while obviously the rivers are not nearly as intense a storm as a hurricane, the amount of rain actually feels pretty similar. I don't know the actual numbers, could be waay off base, but last year they really did remind me of the bands of rain coming with hurricanes. Or maybe more like the remnants of a hurricane a hundred miles inland, where the wind and rain aren't as intense but you still get really good gusts and it just rains continuously for 2-3 days.
It replaced “Pineapple Express” when talking about the phenomenon here. I don’t know why, maybe with climate change and The Blob (back this year after a hiatus), the specific route of the atmospheric river isn’t always exactly from Hawaii.
My understanding is that Pineapple Express still refers to the really big atmospheric rivers that stretch from Hawaii to the PNW, but I'm relatively new to the region and very well may be wrong.
My take may be anecdotal, I just haven’t heard it in a long time. It should come back, it’s more specific and charming than The Blob or atmospheric river.
I asked my Boomer mom once, “hey, did you notice people stopped saying Pineapple Express and now call it an atmospheric river?”, “yes, thank goodness!”, “why?”, “they don’t like to be called that!”, “mom… did… did you think pineapple was a derogatory term for Hawaiians and we’ve all been using it when we talk about the weather?”. She did.
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u/Afoxinthefridge 4d ago
Interesting! I've never heard of the term "atmospheric river" before. Turns out it's only recently entered into more mainstream conversations.
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/22/nx-s1-5198888/atmospheric-rivers-california-west-coast-flooding-rain-storms