Southern California & Northern Baja Facing Rare Tropical Storm/Hurricane Alerts

[Webster]

(Weather Underground) Hurricane Hilary is bringing bands of heavy rain and gusty winds to the Southwest and much of western Mexico. The remnants of Hilary will bring damaging wind gusts and potentially catastrophic flash flooding to the American Southwest this weekend.

The National Hurricane Center warned that "In the Southwestern U.S., the potentially historic amount of rainfall is expected to cause flash, urban, and arroyo flooding including landslides, mudslides, and debris flows. Dangerous to locally catastrophic flooding impacts are expected late tonight through early Monday," in their Saturday afternoon discussion.

Here is what you need to know about this storm, its potential impacts and why it's taking this track.

Where Hilary is right now: Hilary is currently located west of Mexico's Baja peninsula and is moving north-northwestward at an increasing pace. Hilary is a very large storm and is bringing bands of rain and gusty winds to Baja California and parts of western mainland Mexico. A wind gust of 63 mph was reported in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Saturday morning.

A tropical storm warning has been issued for parts of Southern California, including L.A., Orange and San Diego Counties, as well as portions of Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura Counties. This is the first time the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service have issued such a warning for Southern California.

A tropical storm warning is in effect for the Baja California Peninsula, including Cabo San Lucas. Hurricane watches and warnings extend up the Pacific coast of the Baja Peninsula. In addition, flood watches are in effect across a wide swath of the West, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas and Boise.

Tracking Hilary Northward: Hilary is now accelerating toward the north-northwest, and that will take it close to at least part of Mexico's Baja Peninsula this weekend as a hurricane. Hilary will likely bring hurricane conditions to parts of Baja California, in the areas covered by warnings in the map above by late Saturday.

As Hilary interacts with cooler water and more land, it will continue to weaken through the weekend. In a much weaker state, Hilary is forecast to track over parts of California late Sunday into Monday, then transform into a batch of heavy rainfall soon after that.

 

[Nebulous]

Heard about this. I am further up the state but it still could affect me somewhat.

 

[Webster]

(AccuWeather) Hilary was making its presence felt in Southern California at the beginning of the weekend despite steadily losing wind intensity along the coast of Baja California. AccuWeather meteorologists warn that impacts from Hilary are likely to be highly disruptive, damaging and dangerous as the storm flings copious amounts of moisture northward into early week.

Sunday morning around 11 a.m. PDT, Hilary made landfall over the northern Baja California Peninsula, spreading copious amount of rain and gusty winds to the region.

AccuWeather meteorologists say that a life-threatening flooding disaster is unfolding in some of the desert areas and mountains in Southern California to southern Nevada, where more than a year's worth of rain could fall. “The impact from Hilary has the potential to be an extraordinary event, one that is rare and unprecedented," AccuWeather Director of Forecasting Operations Dan DePodwin said.

Downpours advancing northward ahead of Hilary were already resulting in flash flood warnings across the deserts of Southern California on Saturday, and AccuWeather's expert team of forecasters say that the worst of the storm's impacts are still to come.

On Sunday, 24-hour rainfall reports across Los Angeles County ranged upwards of three quarters of an inch and even up to 1.43 inches observed by the morning hours in Valyermo, California.

Hilary peaked in intensity Thursday night as a powerful Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph, several hundred miles to the southwest of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula. As of Sunday morning, Hilary was a few hundreds of miles to the south-southeast of San Diego and peak sustained winds had slipped to 65 mph, or tropical storm strength. Despite the storm losing wind intensity prior to landfall and passage into California, hurricane-force gusts of 74 mph or greater can still be spread along the coast.

 

[MrDawn]

Damn, this is really bad.