Concern is growing Hurricane Hilary will unleash a prolific amount of flooding rainfall on the southwestern US and parts of California as it makes a rare move over the region Sunday and into early next week, triggering the first ever tropical storm watch for California.
Hilary could dump more than a year’s worth of rain in parts of three states: California, Nevada and Arizona. Because of the threat, parts of California face a rare high risk for excessive rainfall. This Level 4 of 4 threat is the first to ever be issued for this part of Southern California.
Hilary was a powerful Category 4 hurricane churning about 360 miles south of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Friday afternoon with sustained winds of 145 mph with stronger gusts, the National Hurricane Center said.
Video Chapters:
0:00 – Intro
0:23 – Major Hurricane Hilary Looking Impressive
4:18 – 12z GFS model Guidence
6:57 – Historic Rainfall Totals Likely
8:30 – Very Rich Moisture In Place
9:07 – 500mb Steering Flow Pattern
10:38 – Spegetti Plots 12:07 – Hilary May Make History
12:37 – Latest NHC Products 17:45 – URGENT Announcment 1
9:35 – Outro/Promotion
https://weather.cod.edu/forecast
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And , according to the Bab. Bee ….
any deaths will be due to suicide…
😉
Deaths Caused By Hurricane Hilary To Be Labeled Suicides | Babylon Bee
Oh I get it now. Hilary the hurricane and Hillary whose enemies commit suicide at an uncanny rate.
On the bright side, at least Hilary will drop a fair amount of water inside the Powell/Mead watershed area. Also give the Mojave a long needed drink.
I wonder how many wind turbines will be damaged in Tehachepi Pass??
The wind prediction doesn’t seem too extreme, probably road damage from flash flooding.
Wind will be the worst at higher elevations on the east side of the storm. Looks like it will be almost right over San Bernadino at 5 PM today.
But flash flooding will certainly be the major cause of damage and disruption. Those in the area the get on the road really need to be paying attention as the road or bridge ahead may be underwater or washed out.
Most of them in Tehachapi aren’t functional anyway. Spinning junk but no output.
Just how much Chardonnay has she been drinking?
Not just enemies, pretty much anybody that could testify.
30,000 emails at risk
Who was hiding out in the Mojave that was going to testify?
Well Trump said too – Im coming after you if you are against me.
Trump started the whole ball rolling about ‘lock up’ a presidential candidate. hehehe
memo to Trump , never never ever be caught on tape on the phone asking for ‘more votes’- 2 months after the election.
Thats was Rudys job to get the little people into line
Trump was seriously negligent in not prosecuting Hillary Clinton.
Dealing with Democratic Party spin on the election seems neverending. There were more than enough dubious ballots in Georgia to affect the outcome. And Raffensperger went full wussy.
Which recount showed that ? Including a state wide hand count, that found 1200 votes for Trump
Even a Federal judge appointed by Trump rejected the Trump claims of various things
Once one allows a dubious absentee ballot to enter the system, dealing with it is difficult. The absentee ballot system should have been dealt with before any ballots were counted. “But that is voter suppression!!!”. In other words, there was literally incredible voter turnout.
Recounts don’t check for dubious ballots. Once they are in the system, they are counted.
The judge refused to hear the case citing lack of standing and relevancy. No judge has ruled on the issue of quality.
Plenty of people have been locked up for doing what Hillary admitted she had done.
They were doing recounts, Trump just told them that they needed to find him a few more votes. How is this different from what Gore did in 2000?
Trump was a Republican.
Well don’t forget to take screenshots because the data will vanish soon after…
I’m in Inyokern, north Mojave Desert. The center of the track fan is about 20 miles east, been holding that distance all day. Predicted 4 – 5 inches rain, I’ll believe it when I see it. I was going to ride this one out in my mountain cabin, but I think the roads might become impassable for a while.
What more proof could one ask for, we will be blamed for this.
I would be looking for some virgins to sacrifice ASAP if I lived out there
Virgins in California?? Good luck.
Perhaps an emergency use authorization can be obtained to bring a virgin in from another state then
The obvious answer is to find a female who IDENTIFIES as a virgin. Problem is, she might not be so keen to do so if she knows she’s going to be sacrificed…
Just say it will be on Tik Tok, and they only have to sacrifice their virginity. We arent heathens
Lots now, they cut off genitals at 12.
Just a bunch of Fauxnuttles and Fauxginas
It’s amazing how many similarities there are between Commifornia libtards and Arab slavers supplying eunuchs to the Islamic world!
Eunuchs were common in hellenistic (The word comes from the greek) , roman and chinese empires too
Eunuch word in Greek is common in the bible but later translations into european languages just used ‘official’ instead as it went against norms to think Judea had castrated men
No wise men either. Definite proof that Jesus will not be reborn in California.
Zoom/Earth has much better map than this boring weather guy….you can see everything including a low pressure heading towards Hawaii and 2 low pressures off the west African coast….caused of course by those pesky butterflies. It appears Callyfornia is gonna get whacked by Hitlery.
Zoom Earth | Weather Maps & Live Hurricane Track
Interesting map. It indicates Hilary at 130mph winds. However, when you select the area of highest winds they barely make hurricane strength 72-74mph.
Where exactly are those Cat 4 winds behind MEASURED??
Or are they only MODELED??
According to this Nullschool display, the winds around Hurricane Hilary are around 115mph.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=-109.58,31.63,464/loc=-94.556,37.110
Notice that the high-pressure system that was over the southwestern U.S. is now moving to the center of the U.S (center marked), where it will heat up areas that have been getting rather pleasant weather this summer so far.
The movement of this high-pressure system to the East opens the door for Hurricane Hilary to come right up into California, and it also cuts off that lovely rain we have been getting here in Oklahoma all summer.
I flew into Kansas City yesterday and marveled at how green everything was for mid-August. I think that is about to change in pretty short order. Despite the news articles about the record breaking heat in the KC area, it really has been overall a nice summer so far.
” Despite the news articles about the record breaking heat in the KC area…”
Not record breaking compared to 1936 .
But they don’t want to admit that . Would ruin their fearmongering .
Precisely. This is a pretty ordinary year. Haven’t even broken 100 yet, officially.
Yep. It looks like what will be the heat index temperatures in this will be about what the actual temperatures were in 36.
Yes, the vegetation is definitely green right now, but that could change depending on what this high-pressure system does.
If it hangs around too long, things will start drying out pretty quick.
Get ready for a little bit higher temperatures in the central U.S. all the way up to the Canadian border.
You are getting all the rain we aren’t getting in Texas.
Bryan — wind speeds vary with altitude. I just checked Hilary on Ventusky.com which allows you to select altitude. Indeed, maximum wind speeds at 10m look to be around 70mph. However, when I move up to 3000m (10000 ft more or less) the maximum winds are over 110mph. I would guess that someone around here knows what altitude tropical cyclone winds are usually measured/estimated at. I don’t.
It was my impression that they were measured where they do the most damage…ground level (2-10M). Winds at 10,000′ have very little effect at the ground. You might as well be afraid of the Jet Stream every day.
Bryan — I think that’s possibly/probably true of tornadoes and straight line winds. Tropical cyclone windspeeds OTOH are surely measured mostly by “hurricane hunter” aircraft, and I doubt that even someone crazy enough to deliberately fly into one of those storms is going to make a pass through at 10m above nominal sea level. Again, some folks around here probably actually know what the conventions are and can take the time to explain them to us.
Don’t forget there are mountains with lots of structures on them in that storms path. East side is where the highest winds will be.
Buoy’s will measure at/near sea level obviously, the hurricane hunter aircraft measure at around 10,000 ft. +/- whatever’s safest.
That is always what I see with hurricanes. But who know what goes into it. The Zoom map has been helpful to me for thunderstorm warning.
Thanks for the awesome link!
What happens in Vegas gets washed downstream.
Uh oh. UFO take-offs/landings in Area 51 might have to be delayed.
Let the wailing begin…”worst than ever”, “never happened before”, “unprecedented”, “hasn’t happened since…”, and etc…
It *will* happen.
Michael Mann will explain how CO2 steered Hurricane Hilary right into California.
While such storms coming ashore in that area are rate, Hillary is certainly not unprecedented. Two TS hit in that vicinity last century. The last one was Kathleen in 1976. I was living in San Diego at the time. Kathleen passed east of us near the border with Arizona but for a couple days we had some pretty good waves coming in and most people refused to par in the spaces near the beaches.
Other than being 100 miles or so west of the usual track, how does Hillary differ from the usual Monsoon storms, that normally start up about this time?
100 miles east and the storms encounter a lot more land, and loose energy more quickly.
Hilary differs greatly because before it made landfall it *was* a hurricane. The usual monsoon storms that we get just about every year spin up from the desert southwest, and with the right weather pattern, are pushed into So Cal and can cause rain and t-storms. Some places Hilary passed over did see significant winds. Hilary passed about 60 miles east of me and all I saw was lots of rain.
Another “storm watch” for SoCal that will probably turn into ‘an exercise in preparedness’ even if it materializes. Watch it with dopler radar and make up your own mind.
yes, waiting for the fizzle.
If we get an inch, I’ll be happy. The prediction is 5 inches. If we get 5″, it will be interesting around here.
As always, the actual damage depends on the storm track. If the storm tracks East, it’ll possibly do considerable infrastructure damage to areas that mostly have virtually no people. Kathleen in 1976 took out 400 meters of Interstate-8 and washed away much of the tiny town of Ocotillo. Hardly anyone remembers that. If it tracks West it’ll pass over densely populated areas in Mexico and the US. The damage in the US will, of course get headlines. And potentially it’ll run to big numbers because a lot of ridiculously expensive housing is built in somewhat vulnerable areas. But I’m less concerned than I possibly should be because California does get heavy rain from time to time and one supposes that most of the really dumb places to build in SoCal should be off limits by now.
I’m more worried about the roughly 2.5 million folks along the Mexican coast from Ensenada to Tijuana. Maybe the state of of poverty and the quality of housing in Baja California have improved in recent decades. They couldn’t have gotten much worse. If they haven’t, this could be serious.
So looking at this and it’s supposed to just be a tropical storm?
They almost always, and rather quickly, lose steam when they come ashore
I think it is already losing steam. The wind speeds seem to have gone from about 145mph to about 115mph now.
Dry air entrainment and increasing wind shear was expected to and is weakening the system.
A big saving grace with this storm is its fast forward motion. Atlantic tropical systems that stall over land are often the most destructive systems we see. OTOH, its fast forward motion means a lot of water will reach land. Rain with upslope winds will be “interesting” as will rain that flows into flat basins.
Just a matter of time before the “proof of climate change emergency” claims.
Sigh…so predictable and sad.
https://twitter.com/AndrewDessler/status/1692655040077406417?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Already happening. I’m convinced he’s an activist and not a real scientist.
I wasn’t sure what Dessler was saying there. He didn’t seem to be blaming CO2 for anything.
“First ever tropical storm watch for SoCal”. But I heard today this hasn’t happened since 1939 so when did they start issuing such watches?
Since this happened last back in the thirties, just more proof it was warmer back then including outside the continental USA as these form well to the south of you.
Meanwhile I’m supposed to fly to San Diego Sunday afternoon for meetings. Could get interesting.
““First ever tropical storm watch for SoCal”. But I heard today this hasn’t happened since 1939 so when did they start issuing such watches?”
Good question. Back in 1939, about the only way they could find a hurricane was for a ship to run into one at sea. No satellite observations back then.
But I guess they did have aircraft that made the coverage a little better than that.
“First ever tropical storm watch for SoCal”
Sounds like yet another, perhaps, technically true but misleading claim.
Such storms have hit SoCal before but, perhaps, without a “tropical storm watch” being issued?
so when did they start issuing such watches?
Sometime in the 1940s. I noticed that in passing yesterday, I’d look it up, but you didn’t try, so I won’t bother either.
Hasn’t Southern Cal ever had hurricanes before ? 😉
“Southern Cal ever had hurricanes before ?”
Here is an interesting page with plenty of info on past TS activity in the region.
Some bad results to certain events.
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20121017.html
Good link.
If you go back into prehistory there is some evidence that the downfall of Hohokam civilization around 1300-1350 was not due to mega-droughts but rather mega-floods. They had a highly advanced system of irrigation canals, (some of which we use to this day). Then a series of floods led to the gullying of river channels, lowering the upstream water levels below the entrance channels for the irrigation systems. There apparently were a whole series of floods, and the damage occurred faster than they could re-engineer. A few people stayed around but apparently large numbers simply moved away.
That NASA report you linked to mentions that in El Nino years such events can repeat. In 1939 Southern California was hit by three dissipated tropical rainstorms, giving up 8+4+3 = 15 inches of rain, even before that year’s tropical storm actually hit. Then during the 1997 El Nino both Linda and Nora gave southern California heavy rain.
The desert Southwest sees extremes in both droughts and floods. It is one reason the landscape is so awesome. What we need is practical engineers and sensible engineering, not dingbats freaking out and screaming that we need to give up our gas stoves.
Very amusing …. if , like Alan Buis, you think cyclones are the same thing as tornadoes.
No. And it never will because the ocean water is not warm enough to sustain hurricane force storms. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t be windy and rain heavily from the leftover hurricanes that go that direction.
The biggest threat will be precipitation in the mountains and overflowing mountain streams. Hilary may melt the remnants of accumulated snow. Threatened by thunderstorms is Arizona.
The live lightning map is interesting in how it’s changed so fast:
Esp that the storms east of LA towards Phoenix have died out and the main thunder activity is Hermesilios and north as far as the border
The huuuuuge high pressure out in the Pacific ain’t moving and is about equal in mB to the pressure over Mexico to the east of Baja.
That would surely say Hilary is gonna head towards the low pressure the Hermisilios storms are creating and she’ll ground her herself over Baja and NW Mexico
The Fly in the Ointment is a little low pressure system just north of LA but even then, the LA low is only 1010mB and equal that over Baja and all the way up to Phoenix
Hence why Hilary is moving so slowly and the eyewall is crumbling = decisions decisions decisions and she’s running out of puff while making her mind up:
Does she:
OMG: As I’m writing this, the T-storms are coming out over Baja to meet her – they’re about 800km directly in front of her over central part of the Baja gulf…
epic stuff
The geek is strong in this one.
And for that we praise you.
I’m a total weather geek, do most of my work outside, and have the doppler radar running on the desktop nearly 24/7. Living in FL means rains off and on throughout the summer months. Hurricanes/Tropical Storms, just part of our weather patterns.
So anyway, love the coverage and the comments.
Arizona historically has fantastic thunderstorms. (anecdote warning) I was in Phoenix back in the summer of 1981 and my friends and I would go up to Camelback Mountain and watch the lightning strike all over the city. It was quite a sight. I love lightning…
re: “the first ever tropical storm watch for California” – well, it may be the first ever tropical storm watch since storm watches began, but storm watches have not been going for very long.
There are two known tropical storms to have hit california in the past, one in 1858 and one in 1939:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/17/weather/tropical-storm-hilary-thursday/index.html
“ Hilary is more likely to make landfall in Mexico and cross into California. But if the storm makes landfall in California as a tropical storm, it would be the first to do so in nearly 84 years, and only the third tropical storm or stronger to do so on record, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The most recent was an unnamed tropical storm in 1939, NOAA records show.
Before that, the San Diego Hurricane made landfall in October 1858 – California’s only hurricane landfall on record, research shows. “
Those dates suggest that there might be a cycle of around 90 years. There is indeed a known cycle of around that length – the Gleissberg Cycle. And that shows up in some very early records too (7th to 15th centuries):
https://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/nilef-20070319.html
“The researchers found some clear links between the sun’s activity and climate variations. The Nile water levels and aurora records had two somewhat regularly occurring variations in common – one with a period of about 88 years []”
A similar cycle has been detected in east coast Australia rainfall over the last 200 years:
“Time-series analysis of extreme rainfall and flood events in two water catchments of Eastern New South Wales shows an indicative link to Gleissberg 87 yr cycle”
I can’t possibly say whether the three known California storms are part of the Gleissberg Cycle, but it must be possible.
I don’t know why they forget Kathleen in 1976 and rains from both Linda and Nora in 1997.
Because Millennials who now write the news weren’t alive to remember them and are too lazy to research anything that might be different than the echo chamber they like to live in.
I was in high school when the Columbus Day Storm hit:
“On 12 October 1962 typhoon Freda was heading towards land and dying out when it suddenly drifted into a dangerous zone where storms are typically formed. It picked up intensity and turned into a devastating cyclone that hit the Pacific Northwest coast affecting British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and northern California. The most destructive winds which reached up to 138 miles per hour were recorded in Oregon. In Northern California, Oregon and Washington combined more than 11,000,000,000 board feet of timber were destroyed.”
As a result of this storm, one can still see gigantic logs high up along the NW Pacific Ocean shore line, bleaching in the sun.
I believe those didn’t have tropical storm warnings in California. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_hurricanes , it looks like Kathleen and Nora deserve some time on your part:
September 9–12, 1976: Hurricane Kathleen crossed the Baja California peninsula moved into California as a tropical storm. Yuma, Arizona reported sustained winds of 91 km/h (57 mph).[7] Rains from Kathleen caused catastrophic damage to Ocotillo, California and killed three to six people.
September 13–14, 1997: Hurricane Linda was at one point forecast to make landfall in Southern California.[23] Instead, it moved out to sea, although large waves caused by Linda did wash five people off a jetty in Newport Beach.[23] Also, Linda’s outer rainbands generated thunderstorms over southern California, causing flash floods in some regions.
September 24 – 26, 1997: After making landfall in Baja California, Hurricane Nora maintained tropical storm status into California and Arizona. Moderate to heavy rains fell across southeast California and Arizona, with a new 24-hour maximum for Arizona (305 mm (12 inches) falling in the Mogollon Rim). Damage totaled several hundred million, including $40 million (1997 USD) to lemon trees. There were a few indirect deaths caused by the hurricane.[24]
Albert Hammond – It never rains in Southern California Yes it does.
Don’t they warn ya, it pours, man, it pours.
Wow, that’s a name, and a song, I’d forgotten.
It’s definitely a hurricane, right? I heard Hillary was questioning the convection.
Funny! 🙂
It’s at least 1000 miles away from Southern California. We know how unreliable forecasts are for hurricane tracks this far out. I’ll believe it when I see it.
That is a good attitude to have.
Unless you live by a creek. I’ve seen how crazy those western streams get in heavy rains. Have a Plan B ready.
Actually, I live about 150 feet from a creek, but not in California. 🙂
If it takes you two days to pack up and evacuate, waiting until the day before might be a little late.
Track forecasts for Atlantic storms, at least, have gotten a lot better in the last few decades. Intensity forecasts are more problematic.
Please check out https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2023/HILARY_graphics.php?product=5day_cone_with_line – the track forecasts look pretty stable to me.
I don’t know where you live, so I don’t know if you’ll see it.
Why is rainfall “excessive” or present a “risk”. Rainfall just is what it is. So the deserts get some extra rain which mostly just runs off? Why is that “bad”.
If you happen to be an idiot and decide to pitch a tent in a dry arroyo just before a major rainstorm is widely reported to be headed your way, then it is a net benefit to the human gene pool that you do not live to reproduce thereafter.
As for the rest, such a storm will have virtually no effect.
By the way, the southwest deserts of the US typically receive low to very low single digit inches of precipitation per year, so getting a year’s worth of rain in a single storm event is no big deal – no more than the typical rainfall other parts of the midwestern and eastern states routinely receive in an average summer thunderstorm.
“Why is rainfall “excessive” or present a “risk”. Rainfall just is what it is. So the deserts get some extra rain which mostly just runs off? Why is that “bad”.”
It always strikes me funny when some meteorologists report on the Desert Southwest and how dry it is, and you would think that when they can report a little rain there, that this would be a good thing, but they always manage to throw in the scarmongering about flash floods. So in the Desert Southwest, it is a bad thing when it is dry, and it is a bad thing when it is wet, according to some weather reporting.
All weather is “bad” these days!
Those arroyos tell you everything you need to know about rain in the desert southwest. Sometimes–maybe not very often–there is a lot of rain all at once and the runoff can be heavy and catastrophic for anyone caught in it.
There are also those dry lakes that abruptly hold water, and also shrimp-like critters that somehow survived down in the dry lake-bed since the last time the lake held water.
Homeless people live in the drainage culverts/tunnels in Las Vegas. They best move out for now.
All that extra water will go to waste because California.
Am presently watching her on Meteoblue’s (Mb) surface pressure chart – she shows up beautifully right now (13:30 BST saturday)
Running super deep at 965 millibar.
<impressed>
Mb are predicting she meets up with the Hermesilo T-storms and runs aground on the NW coast of Baja near Ensenada at 14:00 PST Sunday..
Makes sense as those storms are now headed NW towards Mexicali rather than due west as earlier
Yes, she fancies ‘Flash Boys’
haha
Last thing she does ……. 4 hours later you’d never know she **ever** happened
The hurricane is moving faster northward and will reach Southern California.
 
https://www.blitzortung.org/en/live_lightning_maps.php?map=35
I study woke cities as kinda a hobby. My weather ste still not even showing anything but sunny days in in San Fran for the entire next week?
I haven’t looked at the effects, but the storm track is well east of SF and the remnants will be moving quickly. Why do you think it will impact SF next week?
I am fascinated by those two little spin up moisture plumes along the border , thats kinda neat
It is a common occurrence along the bands of L s and hurricanes but what sets them off?
Much water will be provided by thunderstorms in the mountains.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2023/08/20/0700Z/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=-118.68,33.61,844
Some of the readers here must be from Southern California — I am,born and raised, though don’t live there now.
This kind of storm is nearly unheard of, and danger comes from high winds and rain amounts. Lots of rains, while you might think it a good thing, is falling on dry dry dry mountains and deserts. In the LA hills, this means mudslides and houses being washed down the mountain into the canyons. In the deserts further east, it means flash floods.
Los Angeles has and extensive flood water diversion canal system for just this type of storm. The block square park I played in as a kid was really a storm water swale — intended to flood ten feet deep and adsorb excess water before it flood the homes and streets. My brothers and I would build scrap-wood rafts and pole around on the lake while the police shouted at us from the shore.
Tijuana and Ensenada will be hit hard and millions will suffer — entire neighborhoods of ramshackle homes will slide down the hills in Tijuana.
In the U.S.? It will be high winds, funneled in some cases by geography. Power lines will come down, but the rains should prevent wildfires. Mudslids and flash floods in the canyons and arroyos. None of the So.Cal cities have adequate storm water systems to handle a true full-on tropical cyclone….
I have fought the flooding in coastal California twice as a college student volunteering…
Kip: I have a photo out in the garage somewhere of my dad’s model-A which was parked in front of an apartment house near the mouth of Santa Monica Canyon during the 1939 storm. Actually, it’s a photo of the top four inches of the roof, the rest being buried in mud. Given the topography, I’m not sure the result of a similar storm today would be all that different. I also recall that the casino at Avalon on Catalina Island had pictures showing several fair boats that had been pitched over the sea wall onto the main street of town by the storm. But I agree. Most of LA is gently tiled and has decent drainage. This isn’t the Gulf Coast, And the areas that are more rugged have seen enough storms that they probably can handle one more. Even a big one. The few major streams are channelized. San Diego, except for the downtown and the area around Mission Bay is mostly built on mesas maybe 100 meters above sea level. And, in a (rare) exhibition of good sense, San Diego doesn’t allow residential development in the canyons.
I also agree that south of the International border things may be different. Hopefully our concerns are unfounded.
I have lived in LA/OC since 82 and am actually in the process of moving back to central Cali this weekend. So it will be an interesting drive out on Sun or Mon.
I remember the storms in the mid 80’s that ripped out the Huntington Beach Pier as well as the early/mid 90’s when the Sepulveda flood control basin actually got used.
Heck in the late 2000’s I saw cars floating on side streets in Santa Fe springs. Pretty cool watching the water fill the street before the sewers were full so the air that vented through the manhole covers made mini whale spouts for about 10 mins.
It will be interesting to see if this exceeds those or not. I’m a little jaded by the old 90’s breathless STORM WATCH 7000(or whatever number it was) Doppler Radar so I’ll take it as it comes.
but life in the hills and along the coast is gonna be dicey for a while.
Gino ==> By the 80’s I had run off to sea, got mixed up in a couple of revolutions and coups, and been forced into harbor in Safi, Morroco by a hurricane that back up to Northern Africa. But I remember the rains of the 6os and early 70s.
“but life in the hills and along the coast is gonna be dicey for a while.” — True that, it looks like Hilary is staying westerly closer to a run up the coast
Kip,
I think what you’re describing (“In the LA hills, this means mudslides and houses being washed down the mountain into the canyons.”) is what happens in Southern CA (LA Basin) during the winter rainy season after days and weeks of relentless rains or a heavy winter rain event falling on a recent burn scar. Yes there could be flash flooding in the usual areas, Forest Falls and Lytle Creek come to mind but since there are no recent burn scars I don’t think the LA Basin will see any houses being washed down the mountain.
You might be right about Southern CA cities not having adequate storm water systems for tropical cyclones but there’s been huge improvements since the winter flood of 1938 and others. The recent expansion of the Prado Dam comes to mind and also the recent addition of the Seven Oaks Dam.
As with melting snowpack I would guess 95% of this water will be dumped into the sea?
rhb2 ==> California has a very limited reservoir system and mostly refuses to add water storage reservoirs because of “environmental concerns”. So, yes, most of the water desperately needed next summer or next year will be allowed to run into the sea.
Water recharge is a benefit. My cabin well water depth has changed from 50 feet last summer to 38 feet as of last week.
Randle ==> Yes, of course. depending on where you are and the soil types in your local, and the depth of your well and local water table. But generally, yes, a good hard rain should help a lot in the drier areas.
We live in northwest Arizona, 20 miles northeast of Kingman. Last night, in 1.5 hours, we received 1.43 inches of rain. This monsoonal rain was not associated with the hurricane.
I spent most of the daylight hours creating a series of swales around my greenhouses and re-forming some of them that prevent water from coming into the house. There is a shallow wash that runs west, 200′ south of our house. The house, greenhouses, chicken coop and shed are protected by a 3 block tall wall that runs east to west, along the 2% grade of our property. Where the wash enters the property, there is a stub block wall, which forms a short leg arrowhead, directing the wash to the north of the house. Swales were created there to direct some of the wash water into the orchard and rosebush areas.
I spent 20+ years at Timberline Lodge, at 6,000 feet on the side of Mount Hood in Oregon.
We moved here in 2021. 700″ of snow through-out the winter months was a normal occurrence, along with 100+ mph winds as a normal scenario at 6,000′.
The point, is this: You are prepared for what is coming, or you are not.
Sounds like you are prepared! 🙂
I saw all that activity to the east of us on the radar maps