California prepares for Hurricane Hilary
Southern California has been issued its first-ever tropical storm watch as “large and powerful” Hurricane Hilary takes aim at Mexico and the region over the next 48 hours.
The National Hurricane Center says that the watch is unprecedented for the region and Hilary is expected to bring heavy rain and the risk of flash flooding from the Baja California peninsula all the way north to Nevada.
As of Friday, the hurricane was located about 360 miles southwest of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph.
“It is rare — indeed nearly unprecedented in the modern record — to have a tropical system like this move through Southern California,” Greg Postel of the Weather Channel told CBS News.
The last time a tropical storm hit California was 1939, before they were even given names and the state has been hit by sub-tropical storms in the years since. Forty-five people died in that storm, most from drowning.
The hurricane is expected to hit Baja Mexico over the weekend and weaken and arrive in Southern California as a tropical storm on Sunday evening.
“Right now, it’s looking like we’ll still have a tropical storm when it moves into Southern California, but it’s going to be weakening pretty quickly,” said meteorologist Brandt Maxwell, of the National Weather Service.
