Rain is expected to start about six or seven in the morning in Brent’s neighborhood.

California is so big that, from here, it extends about four hundred miles to the north and four hundred and fifty miles to the south. That is where San Diego County is, in the southwestern corner of California. It is so far away that the weather there can be very different from here, as it is now that Hurricane Hillary is coming up from the coast of Baja California. While a tropical storm warning is in effect there, typical summer weather is expected here.

Typical summer weather here is dry. Not much rain happens after early spring. Not much happens prior to late autumn. Every few years, a single odd and brief thunderstorm goes through in the middle of summer, leaving no evidence of its downpours two days later. If it were to happen this year, it should happen about now, like it is in Southern California.

Forecasts for the weather in Southern California are quite unpleasant. A friend in Palm Springs was filling sandbags today. Floods and mudslides are expected through a huge area. This is the first tropical storm in California since 1939, and the first ever tropical storm warning. Yet, we will miss it completely here.

I try to remind myself that the historically torrential rain of last winter was no fun. Flooding was a mess, and caused significant damage even in this neighborhood. Nonetheless, even native Californians can start to miss rain late in summer.

Brent will likely telephone at about seven in the morning. It might be raining by that time. It should finish by noon on Monday. Realistically, it will not rain for long. The problem is that rain will be torrential, especially at high elevations out in the deserts, which do not absorb much water. It will be interesting to see what transpires.

24 thoughts on “Hurricane Hillary”

  1. Tony,
    It’s unbelievable to see what has happened in California this year, even though all the weather didn’t happen in all the same places. I hope everything turns out okay for Brent and for your friends who were sand-bagging–and for people in the path of this storm.

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    1. They are fine. There was no flooding in Brent’s region. He was impressed by the rain though. Palm Springs was messier, with a bit of flooding on some of the main roads. When we were in school, we noticed that at least one of the main boulevards was designed to divert runoff. It was lower than the surrounding land, and sloped towards the middle. People who lived there back then and earlier knew about flash floods, and designed their infrastructure accordingly. When the road flooded, they just did not use it. Nowadays, people do not want to be inconvenienced by weather. I saw in the news that people needed to abandoned their cars on a flooded road. I could not help but wonder if it was the same road that I remember, which was designed to divert floods.

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  2. This is such an usual and odd weather system shaping up along the coast of Mexico and California. When I last looked at the weather last night, it looked like even Las Vegas might get part of the storm. I hope that has changed by now, as I know that desert areas simply can’t absorb large amounts of rain.

    The odd thing with these tropical systems is that they not only travel for a long way as an organized storm, but they also affect much wider areas than their official ‘NOAA’ track would suggest. The NOAA maps tell only a part of the story. Storms on the east coast have initially come ashore somewhere in FL or the Carolinas, but end up causing flooding in New England. Maybe it is the concave shape of our coast and many rivers and bays that continues to feed them. I hope that you are correct and that your area isn’t affected. And I hope that your friends who lives in Southern California come through OK, too. By the way, you should have received an email yesterday at the address you gave me, on another matter.

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    1. Desert regions of Southern California do not get much rain, but when they do, it can be torrential. Actually, the most torrential rain that I ever experienced was in Beverly Hills, which is either a desert or a chaparral climate. It began and ended very suddenly, and did not last for long. When I went to Palm Springs in about 1987, I noticed that at least one of the main roads was designed to divert flood water from town. The region does not need the remnants of a hurricane for flash floods. Brent is fine, and enjoyed the wintery volume of rain. A friend in Palm Springs filled sandbags prior to the storm, and is also fine. I will check my email presently.

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      1. Happy to hear that everyone is doing OK. We have been watching the coverage of the storm in Southern California and it looks like everyone cooperated and got through this with OK. Terrible photos of the flooding and mudslides, but at least the word got out in advance and folks were prepared. We hope that recovery is as swift as can be managed.

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      2. Yes, but I think it could have been better. I can remember that some of the main roads of Palm Springs were designed to divert flash floods through town as efficiently as possible. They were lower than the surrounding neighborhoods, and sloped inward, like dry creek beds. Although this particular storm was very unusual, flash floods are not uncommon there. Years ago, people just stayed home during major downpours, or at least did not cross the flooded roads. Nowadays, people do what they want to, and then can not understand why their cars get stuck on flooded roads that were designed to become creeks to divert flash floods.

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    2. Oh my, what a dorky mistake! I made the necessary correction on Six on Saturday. Thank you. No one would mind if you mention such mistakes here. It might let some know that they are correct in perceiving a mistake.

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      1. That is very generous of you. I try to follow the golden rule of ‘Praise publicly, correct in private.’ It is so hard to keep all of the changes in nomenclature straight along with all of the variations of common names of plants, and what springs to mind (for me) isn’t necessarily correct. I am always looking stuff up and am still surprised when a genus or something has changed since the last time. Such is life among the plants… ❤

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  3. In Aliso Viejo (inland from Laguna Beach), I awoke this morning to the beginnings of the rainy part of Hilary. It was an outer band, and it is now raining again, this time more heavily — the prediction is for the heaviest rains to come between about 5 pm and tomorrow morning I didn’t sandbag, but I cleared my patio of things that could blow around, and lowered the umbrella (it’s now lying on the ground next to the house), and stocked up with food (include things I can eat without needing to cook them. It feels a bit like extra hype from the news media, designed to impress on people the need to be “ready,” but at the same time it’s a little scary. My feeling is that the rain will be like some we had during the winter but from a slightly different direction.

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    1. Yes, that is what my friends in Southern California are saying. The earthquake concerned me though. Earthquakes do not get enough attention in regard to the rainy season. I mean, they happen here, and so do mudslides, so what if an earthquake happens while the ground is saturated and likely to slide?

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    1. This has not happened in a very long time. Satellite images were not available back then. For most regions of Southern California, the weather was more like a normal winter storm. It was torrential in some regions, but such regions sometimes get torrential rain without a mention in the news.

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  6. Hello from the nation’s Disaster Theme Park! Ojai is still shaking, with another 39 aftershock this morning! Hilary went through with a bang on Sunday night, leaving many downed trees and branches, and flooded roads where there were low intersections or dips in roads. Palm Springs and Las Vegas both had LOTS of flooding, and are digging out from muddy roads and muddy houses. On the good side, there were no lives lost, and it is a beautiful sunny day today (Tuesday). I have often wondered what would happen if there were two disasters at once (eg, hurricane and earthquake) — the news people apparently have as well, and they announced that we had a “hurriquake My return to normalcy is almost complete — the patio looks livable again, and the welcome mat is out by the front door again!

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    1. It is impressive that such extreme weather there could totally miss this region. For as long as I remember, most storms that landed in Southern California eventually came here, even if they did more or less.

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