Saturday, August 19, 2023
With Hurricane Hilary fast bearing down on the region, officials issued a tropical storm warning for a swath of Southern California Friday night meaning tropical storm-force winds are expected in the region within the next 36 hours.
The only time a tropical storm has made landfall in California the last 100 years was in Long Beach in 1939, according to the National Weather Service.
A storm has never been recorded to make landfall in California as a hurricane. Hurricane Hilary, which formed early Thursday, is heading up the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Hurricane Hilary reached maximum sustained winds near 145 mph on Friday morning before dropping to 130 mph in the afternoon.
Southern California was already bracing for a rare and potentially destructive weekend.
Such lashing winds would be only one of the storm’s potentially dangerous impacts, with forecasters also predicting intense rain, flash flooding in the desert and mountain areas and harrowing conditions along the beaches.
The storm has prompted officials to cancel events and issue dire alerts, particularly as the system moves across southwestern California on Sunday and Monday.
The National Weather Service issued the tropical storm warning at 8 p.m. Friday for the area from the California-Mexico border to Point Mugu and for Catalina Island.
Hilary is expected to remain at hurricane strength as it approaches the Baja California coastline Saturday, with authorities there bracing for damage.
Almost all of Southern California is facing a moderate flash flood risk, with the warning extending into the eastern Central Valley, parts of western Arizona and around Las Vegas.
Some of the highest rainfall totals — from 6 to 10 inches — are possible along many east-facing desert slopes of the Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego County mountains, Adams said.
Rainfall is expected as early as Saturday morning for the Southland’s mountains and deserts, continuing through Monday.
Precipitation will spread into Southern California’s coastal and valley areas, including the Inland Empire, probably by late Saturday, Adams said.
Two to 4 inches of rain will be expected in those locations through Monday.
When the eye of the storm arrives late Sunday, San Diego and Orange counties can expect 40 to 60 mph winds, the National Weather Service said. Gusts in excess of 80 mph could hit places such as Joshua Tree National Park.
National Weather Service officials in San Diego say the projected path of Hilary is quite unusual; typically, when such storms get this far north, they move to the east.
But Hilary won’t be able to because of a massive heat dome lingering over Iowa and the central Plains.
So Hilary, as a tropical storm or tropical depression, could hold together all the way into Nevada, officials said.
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Saturday, April 27, 2024
