Most of the heavy-rainfall events along the US west coast during the cool season can be attributed to atmospheric rivers, the narrow ribbon of high water-vapor flux that often forms as part of the warm conveyor belt. Accordingly, understanding whether or not these phenomena are well forecast is useful. Accordingly, total precipitable water forecasts from the ECMWF and NCEP forecast models (from the THORPEX TIGGE archive) are compared against SSM/I retrievals. Characteristics of errors in the frequency and intensity of the atmospheric rivers in both analyses and forecasts will be described.