Apparently a Category 4 hurricane is headed toward sunny little Irvine. That's something new and exciting. It's true that I've been desperately pining away for cooler weather since June, but this sure wasn't what I had in mind. Also, I was hoping to restart my astrophotography this weekend, but I'm pretty sure a hurricane will produce poor viewing conditions.
On the other hand, there's this:
Projections show the storm has about a 50% chance of hitting Southern California late Sunday or early Monday as a tropical storm, meaning sustained winds at or above 39 mph.
Huh. A 50% chance of 39 mph winds. Astrophotography is still out, but maybe this isn't quite as bad as people are making it out to be.
You may find out just how fragile your infrastructure is. Flooding, power outages for days, internet outages for days, and wind damage is never fun.
You do realize that CA has annual wild fires and mudslides, frequent earthquakes (of varying levels), and every decade or so serious Santa Ana winds?
It's not like the important elements of the storm represent something unprecedented.
Can SoCal handle the rain that's predicted?
This would be the main concern. I saw that and was concerned, and I live just about as far from CA as is possible. In the DC area we get tropical storm rain every couple of years it seems, and even here with a much wetter climate it can be a lot to handle.
Also, it's 50% chance for SUSTAINED winds of 39mph OR ABOVE. Kevin's southern California complacency is downplaying it. Sure, 39mph winds aren't huge, but how many homes/roofs there aren't designed for sustained strong winds? What about infrastructure? How about any of the trees that haven't grown up with the sustained winds, so may not be able to take the stresses and will fall? Nevermind full trees, what about large limbs? Etc. etc.
It's kind of like a reverse of what I experience here, where there are full-on freak outs over tornado watches (not warnings) and severe storm watches (not warnings). I'm from the Midwest plains. I grew up with air raid sirens for tornadoes. Sure, it can have some serious effects and one should be prepared for those, but there don't need to be runs on bottled water and TP at the grocery store (for example). So it's kind of sadly humorous that SoCal is about to get that kind of weather and Kevin's response is just "sounds like a nothingburger."
I am from South Florida. You nailed it.
If the sustained winds are "only" 40mph, you are still going to get gusts upwards of 60 mph and probably hurricane force or greater. I'm not well versed in all the ins and outs of Southern California's infrastructure, but if it's anything like Northern California's (building codes exclusively focused on earthquake hazards and not on things like the soundness of rooves and windows, mostly weak overhead power lines that wouldn't last an hour in a Florida storm and take PG&E ages to repair) it is screwed.
And that's not even getting into the problem of water, as others have pointed out.
I dunno. Average ANNUAL rainfall in LA is 16 inches. They are talking about 1-2 inches on the coast, and maybe 8 inches 60 miles east in the mountains (Wrightwood) in 1 DAY.
It's not the wind that's going to be the problem, it's the rain. Get ready for Mudslidefornia.
Two seasons in California: fire and mudslide.
..."A 50% chance of 39 mph winds... Maybe this isn't quite as bad as people are making it out to be..."
Weather reports on local news was the first place I noticed the media's incentives for exaggeration and sensationalism. When travelling domestically, you realize most every city claims to have crazy, potentially deadly weather. And if that's the way the media handles the most mundane quotidian "threats," how can you trust them with things like terrorism. It pays to scare us, and we are susceptible to overreacting to tiny risks of catastrophic outcomes.
I be be worried andwary of flash floods in the desert.
The rainfall predictions are pretty apocalyptic for SoCal. Parts of the desert are predicted to get up to 10 inches(!) of rain, with the coast getting around 4 inches, all in a couple of days. SoCal just isn't built for that volume of water falling from the sky.
To be fair, the initial projections had it at Cat2 when hitting CA. That went down to tropical storm pretty quickly. Maybe the modelers forgot the ocean there is cold. Still first tropical storm warning for S. Cal.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/18/hurricane-hilary-mexico-california-weather-warnings-storm-category-winds
Speed is also a factor - Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy was so bad for the NYC area because it slingshot its way up north so quickly that it didn't have time to weaken and then infamously stalled out and became a hybrid storm.
It would be foolish to rule anything out just yet. The latest NWS update has the storm with maximum sustained winds still at 130 mph. Yes, it will dramatically weaken once it makes landfall, but if it doesn't actually make much of a landfall over Baja, you are rolling the dice at that point: will the ocean off northern Baja be cold enough to significantly disrupt the cyclone in 24-48 hours? Maybe, but there is not a huge amount of time to prepare and/or evacuate if it doesn't.
adding to this - some quick research suggests that for tropical cyclones, a sea surface temperature of 26.5 degrees Celsius is a bit of a magic number. Below that point is where tropical cyclones tend to begin to die. Right now, Hilary's center appears to be in a region that is still at least 28C, but the sea gets much colder quickly the further north you go up the Baja coast.
So probably, this is why NWS is confident that Hillary isn't going to be at full hurricane strength by the time it passes over southern California - but it's still potentially capable of causing serious wind and water damage even as a post-tropical system.
Don't sell the projected rain fall short. Before Hurricane Harvey flooded Houston in 2017, the record holder for rainfall was a Tropical Storm, Allison, in 2001.
Don't sell the potential hazard short. Having lived through several tropical storms, besides the rain, the wind will take down lots of weak trees and the power lines with them. Extended power outages can cause much grief. Street storm drain grates will plug with debris causing flooding in unusual places.
The combo of so much rain and sustained winds is a tree killer. Hurricane Sandy only grazed the DC area in 2012 but I had to pony up about $12,000 to get two trees removed that were uprooted and very gingerly leaning over my neighbor's house. Folks overlook the dangers of tropical storms just because they aren't "the big one".
Heh, yeah what mjd said! Also the rotation will spin up a lot of F0 and F1 tornadoes too!
RUN, KEVIN, RUN!
Err on the side of assuming that this summer's streak of ghastly, unprecedented disasters will continue, and get out while you still can!
RUUUUUUUUUN!
I remember being in Pasadena in the summer of 1976 or 1977 when two tropical storms that developed off the coast of Mexico moved north and drenched the LA area (although they had dropped below tropical storm strength by that time). There was quite a bit of short-term flooding, but nothing that lasted very long.
As one SoCal-native friend put it: "It rains in LA 15 days out of the year. The other 350 days, the drainage infrastructure fills up with dead leaves and debris, so that it can't do its job when the rains do come."
Well as others have suggested, it’s all in the eye of the beholder. I live in a Denver neighborhood that has gentrified up the wazzoo. I’m surrounded by young couples who moved here from all over the country. When we get a little snow here, the couples from Alabama act like it’s the end times. The couples from Minnesota act like they’re in Malibu. How Will certain Californians react to something they’ve never seen?
Drown.
Okay, I know it's wrong, but why couldn't a hurricane designated "Hillary" have hit the Maralago region of Florida? Tanj.
I live just a few miles from Kevin, and I'd like to point out that we've had some experience with heavy rain this year, including a few days with nearly 2", which is what is forecast for with this storm. Moreover, the soil has mostly dried out, while it was soaked during much of the winter and spring.
A lot depends on the intensity, which can vary greatly from place to place.
The latest NHC discussion:
60H 21/0600Z 34.1N 117.3W 45 KT 50 MPH...INLAND
That's about when it'll pass over Irvine. That's sustained wind speeds, so you should expect gusts to be ballpark +20 MPH.
The LA river could be raging. Are you tempted to go to DT and see if you can grab some photos?
Prudence suggests you should lay in reasonable supplies in case of power loss.
If it's a good "blow" your looking for I'd suggest a name change from Hurricane Hillary to Hurricane Monica
I know, I know
Translating to terms which might resonate better with Kevin the Southern Californian, call it a high 5 on the Richter scale.
Having lived through two hurricanes in Houston I'd like to remain Kevin that they are notorously hard to forecast even now and the possibility of stalling and producing much higher rainfalls than predicted is still there. As is it sputtering out and amounting to a small rain event. Preparefor the worst and hope for the best.
"maybe this isn't quite as bad as people are making it out to be"
It is to the people in Baja.
Correction: It is the rain. What is dangerous about a hurricane is always the rain. Remember Catrina? A hurricane is nothing like a tornado, even a cat. 4 will not damage properly built structures (though "properly built" is a foreign concept to most of our builders, unfortunately). Just don't shelter under a tree and you should be fine.
But even something as harmless sounding as a tropical storm will threaten serious flooding.