Hurricane Hillary to hit S. California

[starlily]

So far, it's not any worse where I am than the atmospheric river events we had this past winter. The neighboring school districts have all decided to close for tomorrow though, yet ours hasn't.

[sonrisa]

Aug 20, 2023 20:17:44 GMT -5 k3am said:

Aug 20, 2023 19:29:20 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

I was a bit excited for rain but looks like it’s turning east and will avoid the Bay Area and Sacramento. Probably for the best. I remember when that rare thunderstorm hit in August 2020 and the lightning strikes sparked weeks of wildfires.

But yeah it’s HOT.

Those fires sucked. I was actually on a hike at the top of a mountain and watching lightening strike.. and then spending weeks trapped indoors to avoid the smoke and not being able to go anywhere (like movies or bowling) because everything was shut down due to covid.

We were at Stinson beach when the Point Reyes fire started (the fire was caused by the same lightning but took a day to kindle). We saw the plume before the local fire department and were half way back to the car when the siren went off. First came the dark orange apocalypse skies and then the shut in weeks.

Tropical Storm Fausto never got north of Mexico and never made landfall, but it really fucked things up in CA.

[tiramisu]

I was at work all day today and at one point, it was pouring and the wind was blowing pretty hard. Mostly it rained all day at varying levels of intensity. Some of my coworkers said some silly and ridiculous things. I'm glad it wasn't as intense in my area as predicted. There were still flooded roads, downed trees, and some downed power lines, plus lots of accidents. Grateful that my drives to and from work were pretty calm.

When I got home, everything looked fine. All my outside plants are right where I left them and all the trash and recycling bins for my complex were also where they were supposed to be. In contrast, during storms we had earlier this year, the complex had a dumpster and it got blown completely out of place several times.

[formerlyak]

Some people (mostly overlapping with Trumpers, anti-maskers and “Covid isn’t real” folks), are posting shit in socials about how the storm was just hype and it was simply a drizzle and why are some schools closed. Well, yes, when the storm turned east, we got luck here at the coast of LA County, but it’s not because the storm wasn’t bad. It’s because we weren’t in the bad area. People can’t seem to look past their own yard.

Last night around 8:15 it got really windy in my area and started dumping. We closed the sliders on our balconies because the rain started coming in. I woke up this morning to read that at that point the storm decided to move back west and take a tour through Compton and hang out over Dodger Stadium. We are about 8-10 miles from Compton so that must be where it was when we got that.

Inland and the mountains definitely got the worst of it. And the San Gabriel Valley and Pasadena have some damage.

I hope everyone in those areas is doing ok.

[formerlyak]

Also I can hear someone’s sprinklers on this morning. Why the hell wouldn’t you turn them off before the storm started?!? Even my old, tech unsavvy mom went into her app and figured out how to turn hers off!

[gretchenindisguise]

We rent and are instructed not to turn off sprinklers, so ours went off this morning.

Drove to pilates this morning and there were definitely lots of leaves around and a few branches here and there.

We also realized a branch from our big tree out back came down onto our back fence. No real damage though.

[formerlyak]

gretchenindisguise, I thought to that, but the sprinklers do not belong to renters.

[msmerymac]

I'm late to this, but I've been checking in on friends today. I saw flyover shots of the LA River in Glendale last night and it was insanely full - anything more than a trickle was rare when I lived there! In the day or so leading up to it, LAPD and LA County Sherriff flew helicopters over the river beds to announce the anticipated forecast to people living in tents along there.

LAUSD closed schools today - the first day of school will be tomorrow instead. Same with CSULA and probably a few others. I believe San Francisco closed school too.

Cathedral City/the Coachella Valley got hit hard, which will impact agriculture and migrant farmers, too.

"Downtown Los Angeles on Sunday received 2.99 inches of rain, far surpassing its previous record of 0.03 inch. Los Angeles International Airport got 2.54 inches and Long Beach Airport reported 2.62 inches, compared with their previous records of “a trace” of rain, Thompson said. Burbank received 3.28 inches, compared with its previous record of .01 inch, and Palmdale reached 3.93 inches, compared with .05 inch.

The Southern California mountains also set records with an impressive 8.56 inches in Mt. Wilson, according to the weather service. Other record-breaking totals were reported in Lewis Ranch, which recorded 7.04 inches of rain; Leona Valley and Crystal Lake, both of which recorded 6.97 inches; and Mt. Baldy tallied 5.84 inches."


L.A. County coast and metro area
Hollywood Reservoir: 4.92 inches
Beverly Hills: 4.8 inches
Leo Carrillo: 4.39 inches
Bel-Air: 4.14 inches
Culver City: 3.65 inches
Santa Monica: 3.56 inches
Redondo Beach: 2.47 inches
Hawthorne: 2.24 inches

San Fernando Valley
Van Nuys: 4.7 inches
La Cañada Flintridge: 4.52 inches
Northridge: 4.47 inches
Calabasas: 3.98 inches
Porter Ranch: 3.96 inches
Agoura Hills: 3.95 inches
San Rafael Hills: 3.81 inches
Burbank: 3.56 inches
Canoga Park: 3.51 inches
Chatsworth Reservoir: 3.02 inches
Hansen Dam: 2.29 inches

San Gabriel Valley
Morris Dam: 5.76 inches
East Pasadena; 5.74 inches
Eagle Rock Reservoir: 4.7 inches
Sierra Madre: 4.45 inches
Claremont: 4.04 inches
La Verne: 4.01 inches
Alhambra: 3.6 inches
Whittier: 2.81 inches
Pasadena: 2.4 inches
Mt. Olive High School, Duarte: 1.96 inches

Santa Clarita Valley
Saugus: 6.46 inches
Newhall: 5.71 inches
Castaic Junction: 5.47 inches
Del Valle: 5.26 inches
Castaic: 4.51 inches

www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-21/hurricane-hilary-obliterated-daily-rainfall-records-across-souther-california

[goldengirlz]

Rain is such a mixed bag here. Like on the one hand, water can be incredibly destructive … but also, we need it, right? Rain is good?

This particular storm aside, the way we talk about rainfall here always makes me roll my eyes a bit. Like of course we’re going to obliterate the monthly average when the average rainfall in LA in August is 0.0.

I once took a picture of our local news because they made these ridiculous graphics that were like “we just got 300% more rain than usual!” and it was like, okay, that sounds bad, but we’re still talking about less than an inch!