A tropical storm named Hilary off the west coast of Mexico in the Pacific Ocean officially became a Category 2 Hurricane on Thursday morning, and is on a course to skirt Baja California by midday Sunday, continuing north to California and the U.S.
The National Hurricane Center currently forecasts that Hilary will hit the Southern California coast as a tropical storm early Monday morning, with wind speeds between 39 and 73 miles per hour. Flooding and widespread damage could result.
The National Hurricane Center said confidence in the Hurricane Hilary’s track is increasing, though the path could still shift in coming days. https://t.co/VmpZHws8eR
— SFGATE (@SFGate) August 17, 2023
California is only two months removed from one of the rainiest winter and spring seasons in recent memory, which dumped trillions of gallons of water on the state and left record-setting snowpacks on the Sierra Nevada mountains. Cool spring weather meant that the snow melted slowly, and most areas were able to avert major flooding. However, many residents of the state endured leaky roofs and other damage — including landslides in some hillside residential neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
The last hurricane to hit California arrived in 1858, in San Diego. A tropical storm hit California in 1934. Hurricanes are not uncommon in late August off the coast of Mexico, often bringing warm water and humid air to California — but rarely storms.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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