A major storm in the eastern Pacific is churning its way toward the western United States.
Hurricane Hilary, which grew from a tropical storm to a category 4 hurricane on Friday, is tracking northward along the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico and is expected to make landfall in Southern California this weekend as a tropical storm.
Some portions of the Baja California Peninsula are currently under a hurricane watch, while other areas are under a hurricane warning.
Dr. Ariel Cohen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard, California, told The Dallas Express that the storm would likely decrease in intensity over the weekend as it moves over cooler water off the California coast, but “hazardous” conditions will likely remain.
Weather forecasters predict that Hilary will weaken to a tropical storm before it reaches the U.S. late Sunday.
The National Hurricane Center has issued a tropical storm watch for Southern California from the Mexico border to the Los Angeles-Orange County line and for the Catalina and Santa Barbara islands. Hilary is expected to bring heavy rainfall and possibly “rare and dangerous flooding,” the National Hurrican Center warned.
“Whether it makes landfall as a hurricane, as a tropical storm, or if we just see remnants, the amount of precipitation will be unprecedented for Los Angeles and Southern California,” said Janine Baijnath-Rodino, director of meteorology at the University of California, Los Angeles, as NBC News reported.
This is potentially the first tropical storm to directly impact California in more than eight decades. The last such storm to hit the state was El Cordonazo in 1939. It brought heavy rain and flooding, resulting in the deaths of 93 people and $2 million in damages.
The expected heavy rain could trigger landslides and mudslides in the state, especially in areas where drought and wildfires have impacted the landscape, according to The Weather Channel.
The NWS in San Diego has already begun warning residents of the storm’s imminent arrival, advising them to stay weather aware and check in with those they know who happen to live in the southern portion of the state.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty in exactly where the center of Hilary goes, and we are continuing to encourage everyone to be keeping a close eye on the system and start taking those initial steps to be prepared from flooding rains, strong winds, coastal flooding as well as dangerous marine conditions,” said Oxnard NWS’s Cohen.