What type of statistical model will be best to link atmospheric rivers with daily stream flow extreme ? How such model should be changed to consider an annual flow maxima ?
Your question with the term atmospheric rivers caught my eye, and I assume you mean the flow of atmospheric moisture and how it relates to extreme flow in streams. I think the type of model you suggest is probably doable with GIS in perhaps ArcMap, and you should start for areas that have a lot of stream gauges. The annual stream flow maximum is a commonly collected piece of information, so why not the annual atmospheric flow of moisture over a watershed also something we might evaluate in connection to the stream data. It is difficult tor me to say how well this might work because I don't know how to do it, but is definitely sounds interesting to consider, and what applications might come of it.
I don't know what region you are looking at, but you can use the NCEP model available online to extract information about wind, moisture, geopotential heights, etc. at multiple levels (~ 25mb) from 1000mb to 10mb. The data is available for download in form of a netcdf file. Also, you can perform online plotting of the data with specified coordinates and compare your specific case with the annual average. In other words you have the option to look for anomalous cases by comparing the annual average. Perhaps you already know the approach, but a good start would be to look at extratropical cyclones where there are both jet streaks and moisture gradients. The first link takes you to the NCEP model. Specific and relative humidity is from surface to 300mb are believe. If you are studying the North American region then I suggest NARR, which has many more options. The link to that is the second one posted below. Hope this helps.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/composites/hour/
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/narr/plothour.pl
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