California matters

*checks where that is*

Oh boy. I'm in the zone.

I'm getting conflicting information from my weather app and nothing has happened yet, but I hope this blows over and nobody gets hurt.

Edited by Karxrida on Aug 18th 2023 at 11:06:44 AM

One note that strong rain will begin long before the actual storm comes.

The key things to remember is that water is always the worst part of any tropical cyclone, either the rain or the surge, especially with those mountains y'all have and landslides.

The wind might knock out power, so I assume an Earthquake preparness kit might be useful in this situation if you have one.

Also, there's always a risk of small tornados with tropical cyclones.

Tl;dr: put anything inside or tie down anything you think could go flying, have your earthquake preparness kit ready, and watch your local NWS office for warnings for your area, and be prepared to seek higher ground in your home if major flash flooding happens.

Edit: finally, to repeat the NWS, if you see flooding    TURN AROUND, DON'T DROWN   

Edited by tclittle on Aug 19th 2023 at 2:33:08 PM

Double post:

The NHC in their video today states three things:

• turn on your alerts on your smartphone.
• pay attention of alerts, especially flash flood emergencies.
• get yourself ready and situated for at least the next day by sundown today.

People are starting to panic buy at the stores again. It's nowhere near as bad as when the pandemic first hit, thankfully, but, like, a third of the ice cream at the grocery store is gone.

Ice cream. Why ice cream?

Panic buying in case they have to hunker a few days? Although if they expect the power to go out, ice cream is the first to go.

Edited by terumokou on Aug 19th 2023 at 5:59:31 AM

I bought granola bars. We already have a ton of water and some other non-perishable snacks so we should be good.

Edited by Karxrida on Aug 19th 2023 at 6:13:11 AM

I still have a few days before I can go back to hard and crunchy (wisdom tooth) but I do still have ice cream in the fridge.

I should be fine because I'm not in the worst of the splash zone. Wet for sure but not the worst. Although my sister did joke that someone must have did some bad voodoo to give us a hurricane.

Edited by terumokou on Aug 19th 2023 at 6:33:21 AM

So how at risk would the Inland Empire be of getting say... the Katrina/Sandy treatment?

I'm not sure what level of damage that is, but the video linked above says there's a super high flooding chance for that area.

The Inland Empire isn't the main area of concern. The inland mountains and deserts are, see Ocotillo in 1976.

What precisely do you think the Inland Empire is?

Because it's the desert, in the valley, between the mountains.

For that matter, where do you think Ocotillo is? Because that's very much in the Inland Empire.

From the Wikipedia definition which seems limited to the surroundings of Riverside and San Bernardino and usually to the places that drain to the Pacific. So not (usually) including Coachella etc.

Nah, Coachella Valley is listed as part of it too in the wikipedia definition (because the Inland Empire isn't formal and thus has fuzzily defined boundaries). Check under physical geography under geography.

Anyway, I submit that any definition that doesn't include at least the west part of imperial county is a poor definition.

More to the point, yes, that region is likely to flood, but the rest of the inland empire definitely has flood problems, and is deserts and mountains just the same.

EDIT: Wait I scrolled to the top of the page. It says right there that the Coachella valley is sometimes included.

Edited by Florien on Aug 20th 2023 at 3:21:17 AM

What exactly is the status of the storm? I've seen lots of conflicting information, and all my area has gotten so far is moderate rainfall.

Hilary's core hasn't even reached the US yet as of 2 pm. Might have over the past hour. But the storm is over land in northwestern Mexico.

Also, 5.0 earthquake strikes near Ojai with aftershocks.

Edited by tclittle on Aug 20th 2023 at 5:16:27 AM

Double post: as of the 5 pm advisory, Hilary's core is right on top of Palm Springs.

Edited by tclittle on Aug 20th 2023 at 7:18:57 AM

You wonder if this will create more Hilary Clinton memes ? In reference to this (you know in jest).

Edited by miraculous on Aug 20th 2023 at 5:23:39 AM

My kid brother won't stop calling it Hurricane Hillary Clinton

Maybe it's the area I'm living in lucking out, but this storm felt super overhyped. We got some rain and that was basically it.

The last big rainfall we had was way worse purely due to wind.

Where are you? I'm in San Diego, and we got...exactly that. What a rip-off.

Says a lot about Californians that we're all disappointed we didn't undergo a horrible hurricane.

Not to downplay the humor, but some areas definitely did get hit harder than others; Anaheim had some moderate rain for maybe most of the day, but that was about it me. LA got drenched, with reports of about a year's worth of rain in a single day, while the deserts got two years' worth. If not for the record wet winter/spring we had earlier this year that more or less ended our half-decade drought, I have no doubt the state would have been way worse off.

I must confess, the first thing that popped me into my head, a non-American and mostly certainly a non-Californian, was the David Lynch movie.

(And yes, NOW I know that the movie's title refers to the film's setting )

It should be noted that the general consensus for rain totals were actually in the "double or triple your average yearly rain, but just in a few hours", which can still cause catastrophic damage in the right circumstances, but I think most people started to expect something similar to Houston during Harvey where we got 3 to 5 feet of rain over the course of a week.

But that was a different situation. Harvey meandered, Hilary was in and out very quickly.

For instance: NWS Las Vegas reported that Death Valley beat the record for wettest day ever at Furnace Creek with 2.2 inches with the previous record being 1.7 inches set back on August 5th, 2022. This is still enough to strand people.