Atmospheric river

    It has been raining steadily for two days and nights. Is it another atmospheric river? 

    Such a great term! My son, Ela, visiting during the days of intense rain before Thanksgiving, gave it to me.

    I was immediately charmed. It sounded like something from a fairy tale, a flow from mystical regions through the sky, touching down to earth with replenishing rain, flowing and weaving and meandering like an earthly river, carrying fairies and elves riding on dragonflies, riding the currents on invisible canoes. 

    I wasn't far wrong. The atmospheric river starts in the tropics and moves towards the North Pole, sliding over the Pacific Coast into the valleys, then up and over the Cascades. It's a river of vapor, carrying more liquid than the Amazon River and treating mountains the way the Rogue River treats boulders—obstacles to flow over. 

    Since 2019, atmospheric river events have been rated, along the lines of hurricane ratings, from AR 1 (weakest) to AR 5 (strongest). AR 5 means "exceptional" or "primarily hazardous." AR 4 means "mostly hazardous, also beneficial." Damage could be from mudslides, flooding, saturated soils, windstorms, and, where I live, downed trees. That week's storm was rated between AR 4 and AR 5. 

    At that, I abandoned the fairy-tale fascination. 

     That afternoon, clothed against the rain, Ela stepped through the upstairs window to unplug my gutter. 

    "Don't get swept away in the river!" I warned.

    Unlike the Rogue River, where you could, if you wanted, stand on the shore and watch it flow past for years, an atmospheric river eventually flows past. At 4:00 that afternoon the rain stopped. Everything became quiet. Occasionally a drop of water plinked against the deck. Patches of blue showed through thinning gray mists.