Hurricane Hillary Threatens the West Coast

[Warren Faidley]

Surprised no one has mentioned this **potentially** catastrophic event.

I'm considering deploying to the eastern regions on Monday AM if the flooding becomes epic. My biggest concern is for the Palm Springs area, where steep, bare mountain slopes could send a biblical amount of water into the valleys. I've seen the levees and there is NO way they could contain a massive surge.

The forecasting issues remain speed of the remnants and if the estimated precipitation totals are realized. Roads and highways in this region are historically prone to flooding and closure, including I-8 and I-10, so getting around might be a nightmare. CA's electrical grid is crappy, a factor to consider, e.g., fuel. I would not want to be stranded anywhere in LA, as criminals are going to be loving this event for easy pickings.

On standby.

 

[Mike Smith]

For anyone interested, I'm providing original coverage both on my blog ( www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com ) and on Twitter (@usweatherexpert) of the hurricane. A few minutes ago, we recorded our first-ever 100,000+ day.

 

[Warren Faidley]

So far, made good decision about nixing any chase of this event. It's sometimes hard to separate the inertia of hype from reality of that gut feeling and logical forecasts. Systems moving this fast are generally not "catastrophic" as we saw in 1983 when TS Octave stalled over Arizona. Of course there will be localized events, but not the "biblical event" a lot of people were forecasting. I've seen a couple of chasers in CA trying to suck the excitement out of anything they can find to make it look newsworthy and dangerous for social media -- as usual.