California water regulators want to know more about the periodic megastorms called atmospheric rivers that drop as much as half of the state's precipitation.

State and federal lawmakers have invested millions of dollars in a California Department of Water Resources program to research atmospheric rivers, mitigation and climate forecasting to increase knowledge about these massive streams of water vapor and wind, according to an agency blog post.

The DWR is collaborating with the University of California, San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Yuba Water Agency in a Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations (FIRO) program to incorporate weather and water forecasts into reservoir operations decision-making, the state water agency reports.

Information about the FIRO program can be found here. Additional information about how “hurricane hunter” planes are assisting the effort was highlighted in a recent CalMatters article.