It makes sense that atmospheric rivers would flood West Coast headlines as well as its coastlines. Eighty percent of all West Coast flood damage is attributable to these immense highways of water vapor, which can drench Central California with a season’s worth of rain or freeze Seattle in place with a blizzard . Damages to Pacific states from the surges of precipitation can add up to about a billion dollars annually .

But what about East Coast atmospheric rivers? The daughter of former NOAA research scientist, Wenhao Dong, posed that exact question to her father when she was in first grade.

“She was listening to the report about an atmospheric river over California,” he recalled. “She asked me, ‘Dad, do we have atmospheric rivers [in New Jersey]?’”

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