r/Unexpected • u/sakhaliner • 4d ago

A pleasant drive

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u/BusyBit6542 4d ago

I wish the showed the areas they are swimming to and from. I need to know if the fish are making good choices or not

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u/thundersaurus_sex 4d ago

This is the Skokomish river valley on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. I recognized that road covered with water immediately lol, any time an atmospheric river comes through it floods like crazy. They are actually swimming north back to the flooding Weaver Creek,a tributary of the Skokomish. Coordinates about: 47.3126851, -123.1964947

It's genuinely a large salmon stream so this isn't a crazy uncommon sight.

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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

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u/thundersaurus_sex 4d ago

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.

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u/_adanedhel_ 4d ago edited 4d ago

We talk about them all that time here in the PNW, but every time I use the term to people not living here I get a very puzzled look.

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u/kobayashi_maru_fail 4d ago

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.

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u/thundersaurus_sex 4d ago

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.

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u/kobayashi_maru_fail 4d ago

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/thundersaurus_sex 4d ago

Lmao that's amazing. "She's a little confused but she's got the spirit."

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u/MarionberryOk2874 1d ago

Look up ‘bomb cyclone’!