I'm meteorologist Carly Gomez
and we are tracking a lot of
thunderstorms across the state,
including heat advisories,
excessive heat warnings in
place for most of California,
but everything will be changing pretty
quickly as we move into the weekend.
We are tracking a lot of moisture
coming in from areas of Mexico,
just off the coastline there from Acapulco,
just there West of Puerto Vallarta.
We expect this system,
Tropical Storm Hillary,
to be pretty significant in bringing
in a lot of moisture, thunderstorms,
potential for flash floodings, and yes,
may even make landfall as a hurricane
or tropical storm into California.
As we've been tracking most of the movement
here making its way up the coastline,
we do anticipate that moisture
moving into Southern California,
bringing in some series of flash flooding
potential as well as those strong winds.
Now it may also start moving
its way up Northern California,
which could be a little bit scary for
a lot of people dealing with potential
for thunderstorm chances as we
continue on into the middle of August.
Now I want to bring this up because tropical
storms are not common in California.
We often do get the remnants of
tropical storms, a lot of them in fact.
That do bring in flash flooding,
a lot of rain during even portions
of the summer months.
And that does lead to even debris flows,
power outages,
and even entire homes coming
down from mud slides.
But when it comes to an actual tropical
storm hitting and making landfall,
it's not pretty common.
Most recently,
the most the only real tropical storm
making landfall here was in 1939.
That was tropical storm near Long
Beach and that was quite a while ago.
Before that,
the only known hurricane to impact
Southern California was in 1858 and
that was the San Diego hurricane,
but it actually never made official landfall.
It kind of fell apart just near
the Catalina Islands there,
but it did bring big impacts as it saw
a lot of flooding for the area as well
as the obvious wind gusts potential
to see a lot happening there in terms
of really bad hurricane force winds.
Now let's talk about this tropical tracker.
As we track Hillary,
we are seeing that a lot of that moisture
is being conjured up closer here to Mexico.
And this is important to point out because
we have been seeing a lot of formations,
especially later in the season.
It's not, you know,
uncommon to see hurricanes
forming late in the season.
They typically get their
strongest later in the season.
But here's what makes this one different.
We have been seeing a series of
hurricanes coming off this exact
area and moving its way all the
way West into the Central Pacific.
We saw it with Hurricane Dora
impacting Maui before that.
Greg Fernanda is just out there off to sea.
And that moisture from Fernanda is
actually bringing in quite a bit of
moisture for Northern California spots,
bringing some thunderstorms
to the area as well.
Now as we take a look at Hillary,
this one here is dealing with a lot of heat
near the coastline where it likes to be.
But with all the previous tropical
storms that have made their way to
the central Pacific, that is causing
a lot of what we call upwelling.
That brings in with all the strong winds,
cooler air under the water
to the surface hurricanes.
Tropical storms do not like cool water.
They like it where it's nice
and hot and warm.
They need 80 degree temperatures.
So this one here is going to be sitting
right around the coastline mostly and
the track and predicted track for this
potential hurricane looks like it
wants to Revere just toward the West
there as it becomes a category two
hurricane as of about Thursday night.
But then kind of starts to veer
closer back toward areas of Mexico,
Baja California trying to seek
out much warmer water.
We know a little further north
there is a pocket of cold water
up there and it's just going to
try to seek out the warmth.
So as we continue tracking this system,
looks like it starts to veer off
into Baja California becoming
maybe at landfall there.
If it begins making landfall category
one hurricane and then a tropical storm.
So maybe a cat one right around there at
that peninsula and then finally making
its way up just through Tijuana into areas,
maybe even Chula Vista right there into
San Diego up as a tropical storm system.
If it holds on to that strength,
it'll still be at landfall
as a tropical storm.
And again, remember the last
tropical storm that was in 1939.
So we will see a lot of moisture with
this strong wind gust as well as that
potential for downpours and flash
flooding now eventually becoming a low
pressure system as it makes its way
through Orange County toward Los Angeles.
But the moisture from this is going to be
impactful for Northern California spots.
We're going to continue to see
the potential for thunderstorms.
Now we've been seeing it all week
with thunderstorms even expected
into Thursday and Friday.
But as you track the moisture
coming off that system,
I want you to see this here.
This will start making its way
up into Southern California,
then eventually into Northern California.
You start to see a lot of that
rain that starts making its way
for most of the state here of the
Central Valley into Sacramento,
mostly areas toward the east
there and through Tahoe.
And then if we do see it move its
way all the way into Northern
California in the Northeast here,
this area is typically very dry.
We don't get a lot of rain usually
in that spot unless we're seeing
those thunderstorm chances.
But we are looking at a system here moving
all the way up into areas of Oregon.
Now I want to show you the 10 day quickly
because you're kind of see how it's
playing out With these systems often
come some cooler air cloud coverage,
but a lot of humidity.
We'll see the weekend temperatures
right around these mid to low 90s,
lot of cloud coverage still,
but check out Tuesday.
That landfall for that storm is
expected Sunday night into Monday
into areas of Baja California
and potentially San Diego.
But as it makes its way closer
to us from Monday to Tuesday,
we are seeing a lot of cloud coverage
with temperatures there in the upper 80s.