Hurricanes and l.a.

[pucho812]

well looks like we might catch part of hurricane Hilary.
The good news is that it was downgraded to a tropical storm. The bad news it’s a tropical storm and Southern California. We will get conditions we have seen with some of our winter storms, and people will act like it’s new and make things worse.
To our diy community out here, stay safe.
I lucked out and flew for a work trip Sunday a.m. so I will miss it.

Having grown up on the gulf coast, I lived through several hurricanes and I am thankful I will miss this action.

 

[cyrano]

Hilary, really?

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Hope you don't have any damage over there, Pucho.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Good luck it will likely be a serious rain event, and that can get pretty messy out there...
===
There are three or four potential tropical depressions forming in the warm waters of the atlantic... the weather reports haven't gone all chicken little about this yet, they are still milking the heat wave, but it has been some 280 days since a newsworthy blow, here.

Of course the Pacific has been pretty active this season.

JR

PS: Yes I thought the name was a little odd. Looks like they spelled it different.

 

[pucho812]

Hilary, really?

 

[pucho812]

Hope you don't have any damage over there, Pucho.

Me either I am out of town on business until late in the week.

 

[pucho812]

Two things happened since yesterday.

1. About 50 miles out of l.a. in the next county over there was a 5.0 earthquake. Nothing like having a quake while getting a downpour

2.media reports are not matching what people I know have been saying. The media is calling it the most devastating event in history to hit Southern California, yet people living are telling me how the rain is not that bad. The news getting it wrong or over exaggerating. Sounds typical.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Two things happened since yesterday.

1. About 50 miles out of l.a. in the next county over there was a 5.0 earthquake. Nothing like having a quake will getting a downpour

yup

2.media reports are not matching what people I know have been saying. The media is calling it the most devastating event in history to hit Southern California, yet people living are telling me how the rain is not that bad. The news getting it wrong or over exaggerating. Sounds typical.

Reportedly the only tropical storm to hit SOCAL in several decades. (80+ years)

I saw reports of 5-6" rain in a few isolated places. That's enough water to disrupt regions unaccustomed to heavy rain.

Glad you are OK...

JR

 

[scott2000]

media reports are not matching what people I know have been saying

Maybe studied our reporters when hurricanes come...
It's unfortunate because they blow their loads on everything so when serious stuff is out there, some people don't take it, well, seriously....

 

[pucho812]

Maybe studied our reporters when hurricanes come...
It's unfortunate because they blow their loads on everything so when serious stuff is out there, some people don't take it, well, seriously....

Yes. For example the media says this is the worst ever. Those on the ground say it’s not any more worse then some of the winter rains we have had.

 

[scott2000]

For example the media says this is the worst ever.

Some of those storm clips online where the reporters are hamming it up with people doing normal things in the background are hilarious.. ah....hilarious...

 

[pucho812]

Some of those storm clips online where the reporters are hamming it up with people doing normal things in the background are hilarious.. ah....hilarious...

The real danger is my buddy had trouble running his bbq

 

[scott2000]

The real danger is my buddy had trouble running his bbq

Sorry to hear that. Funny, I was grilling some brats last night and it was a bit dark. Guess I was fascinated by the unusually large number of bats flying around that when I looked out this morning I saw a lone brat on the grill that had rolled back and got left behind.
Guess the raccoons were out of range last night....
Not even the 5 second rule can apply to that guy unfortunately

 

[JohnRoberts]

Not too many people skate boarding in the LA river park today...

JR

 

[pucho812]

Not too many people skate boarding in the LA river park today...

JR

True. The upside is it was not nearly as bad as first reported.

 

[cyrano]

As one lady pointed out in an interview on a TV channel, the real disaster is that those who have been hit by the water, probably have no water damage insurance as it's a dry region and stuff like this happens once every 89 years.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

As one lady pointed out in an interview on a TV channel, the real disaster is that those who have been hit by the water, probably have no water damage insurance as it's a dry region and stuff like this happens once every 89 years.

On average it's dry in much of California, but there are also el nino and la nina cycles that are part of the current normal climate. Of course paving over large areas leads to even more runoff, but this is not an unprecedented event.

https://laist.com/news/la-history/el-nino-rain-flood-historic-los-angeles-southern-california-photos

 

[cyrano]

Thanks for the link. Interesting read.

The same site runs this:

https://laist.com/news/la-history/the-last-time-a-tropical-storm-hit-la-it-was-1939-nearly-100-died
Seems to confirm what the lady said. The last tropical storm was 89 years ago.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Thanks for the link. Interesting read.

The same site runs this:

https://laist.com/news/la-history/the-last-time-a-tropical-storm-hit-la-it-was-1939-nearly-100-died
Seems to confirm what the lady said. The last tropical storm was 89 years ago.

"Stuff like this" is heavy rain and wind which during strong Pacific storms in winter are very similar to what Hilary brought, just not during summer.

I remember the "unprecedented" el nino of 97-98 which brought many strong Pacific storms torrential rain, high winds and caused flooding, mud slides, washed out roads, etc. all over northern CA. The next winter in the Santa Cruz mountains we had a "100 year" snow storm with 7" at our 2200' elevation. Snow isn't common at that elevation in the coastal range, but it does happen once or twice every few years.

Well, 2016-17 was a worse el nino than 97-98 (very similar to one around 1941 if you bother to check historical records for the same area). And last winter there was an 8" snowfall at my former house (as reported to me both by my old neighbors and the new owners of the house).

So, no, I don't buy the continual "worst storm ever because of climate change" cries. Significant and potentially dangerous event? Yes. Unprecedented? Hardly.

 

[pucho812]

As a person living in Southern California
Los Angeles we received the equivalent of what we have seen in storms during the winter months. The wind the same, the rain the same. It was if it was January all over. Two big differences though, 1. We didn’t get the snow in the high elevations, 2. The media didn’t have a Hurricane to piggy back off of. Seriously it must have been a slow news cycle as they painted doom and gloom. So much so that I had friends asking me about hurricanes on account I grew up in the gulf coast. I saw the maps and told them if it continues as predicted we will be fine. We were. But the media continued anyway. In fact they used words and phrases I have never heard before. They had a rating for tropical storms. Normally hurricanes are category based in conditions. Category 1 minimum conditions to be a hurricane. All the way up to category 5. All based on conditions. Cat 5 being the worst. Katrina in New Orleans was a category 5 hurricane.
But the media kept saying category 3 tropical storm. Tropical storms are not usually rated. They are just tropical storms until they have the right conditions to be a category 1 hurricane.
The other thing they kept saying is post tropical storm. I never heard that phrase. My hometown got hit with a tropical storm this week. We had them and hurricanes all growing up. Never heard post tropical storm in my life.
They really tried to milk this.