Hurricane Kay: Will it be the first hurricane in LA since 1858?

[Dan Druff]

No hurricane has made it to Los Angeles in my lifetime, my parents' lifetime, my grandparents' lifetime, or my great grandparents' lifetime.

You have to go back to October 1858, where "the San Diego hurricane" made landfall to both San Diego and Los Angeles. In the 164 years since, there have been no hurricanes in California.

In September 1997, Hurricane Linda was forecasted to finally break that streak, and hit Los Angeles. I didn't believe it. I said that it would either change course or die in the cold Pacific Ocean -- which is basically a hurricane killer in California.

This was a picture of Hurricane Linda, on September 12, 1997:




Indeed, it ended up shifting course, went out to sea, and died. It ended up being no big deal.


Now Hurricane Kay, located in a similar spot to 1997's Linda, is considered having the best chance to hit LA as a hurricane since Linda. However, unlike Linda, this one is not expected to actually do it, but instead is expected simply to come close to LA before degrading into a tropical storm or depression before hitting land.

The storm is expected on Friday night, and will stay through Saturday.

[Dan Druff]

There are only 4 known tropical depressions/storms/hurricanes which have made it to southwest California (Los Angeles / San Diego).

1858: San Diego Hurricane
1939: Long Beach Tropical Storm -- brought 12 inches of rain (!!) to Long Beach, which is just south of Los Angeles
1963: Tropical Storm Jennifer-Katherine -- not a big deal, as southern CA only got the outskirts of it, as it hit Baja California and dissipated
1978: Tropical Depression Norman -- produced "several inches of rain"

This one is not expected to bring massive rain, but might be the first tropical depression/storm to reach land in LA since 1978. The temperature will be mid-70s during the rainfall, which is highly unusual for the area (it's usually in the 40s, 50s, or low 60s when it rains in LA, most commonly around 55 degrees).

[Sloppy Joe]

Bottomset take over please

[ftpjesus]

Latest NHC track has it not passing north of Baja Cali now and circling around back south.

[sonatine]

Bottomset take over please

yeah druff you should probably leave this up to the experts tbh.

[Entropy]

Bottomset take over please

yeah druff you should probably leave this up to the experts tbh.

I thought it was an interesting factoid.
Idk Druff's pretty knowledgeable on this stuff, his piece on the Hoover Dam was good.

His politics otoh, don't get me started.

[TheXFactor]

The hurricane is approaching California.

L.A. will probably get hit with heavy rains and flooding.

[Dan Druff]

Forecasts are now showing 0.4 inches of rain here, so this doesn't exactly look like a major event.