San Diego overdue for a hurricane?

[MaryS]

From the HUH? department"
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011 ... hurricane/

(emphasis added)

Weather.com says San Diego 'overdue' for hurricane
By Gary Robbins
11:27 a.m., June 1, 2011

Weather.com recently published a list (story) of cities that are “overdue” for being hit by a hurricane. Author Rick Knabb inexplicably placed San Diego second on that list, ahead of Tampa, Florida, Savannah, Georgia, and New York City.

The list came out on June 1, the first day of the Atlantic hurricane season. Knabb appears to be unaware that San Diego is located on the Pacific Ocean, and that Southern California is one of the least likely places to get hit by a hurricane.

As the National Hurricane Center often notes, hurricanes typically gain strength while moving over water that’s 80 degrees or higher. Ocassionally, the water gets that warm off the southwest coast of Mexico, sending big surf to Southern California. But the ocean is rarely warm enough off Northern Baja to allow a tropical storm or a hurricane to track directly into our region.

Southern California hasn’t a direct threat from a hurricane since September 1997, when El Nino-warmed waters allowed Hurricane Linda to track unusually far up Baja. (USAToday story.) The National Weather Service issued a statement that said there was a chance that Linda would make shore. But the storm faded. Southern California hasn’t been hit by a tropical storm since September 1939. That storm was comparatively weak, producing winds in the 50 mph range. But it killed about 50 people.

Weather.com’s Knabb didn’t mention that storm in his story about cities that are overdue for a hurricane. Instead, he wrote that, “Only one hurricane is known to have ever directly struck the coast of California with hurricane-force winds. I cannot show you a satellite image, because it happened long before satellites were invented. I cannot show you any video of the hurricane’s damage in California, because it happened before movie cameras were invented. In fact, it’s been such a long time that it took some extensive work by researchers within the past decade to dig up sufficient, relevant documentation of the event, such as old new spaper accounts and surface observations, to paint a clear picture of what happened.

“That one California hurricane struck San Diego on Oct. 2, 1858, producing sustained hurricane-force winds there and resulting in extensive property damages. Winds of tropical storm force extended up the coast to near Los Angeles. Another hurricane hasn’t hit California since. Why is such an event so rare?

The primary reason is the very cool ocean temperatures over the eastern Pacific off the coast of North America, extending northward from the southern tip of Baja California, Mexico. Even though the tropical eastern Pacific to the south and southwest of southern Mexico is routinely a concentrated area of hurricane activity, a rare set of circumstances must be in place for a hurricane to make it all the way up to San Diego. As in 1858, the hurricane must be moving fast enough, over waters just warm enough, to maintain its intensity on the way north to California.”

In other words, Knabb knows that the conditions rarely exist to allow a hurricane to track into San Diego. But he place the city on the list anyway.

[Aardvark6]

Maybe then we will finally get to see if the Polytrack will drain properly.

[Kermit]

After living in Del Mar and La Jolla for 4 years I can say that I enjoyed actual warm water 7 times - warm enough to maybe get a small trophical depression up to Chula Vista.
But that was 15 years ago so maybe it changed.

[Turfenator]

Never know nowadays that we gettin weird weather all over the place, other natural disturbances not withstanding. Any given day...

[CapeCodDoug]

I think the United States as a whole is "due" for a hurricane.

Since Sept. 2008, number of hurricanes in USA = 0. Number of hurricanes in Canada = 4! (Kyle, Bill, Earl, Igor).

San Diego is as good a place as any!

[Turfenator]

Personally, am more worried about Yellowstone volcano than any 'cane or major winter storm, etc.

[Igeteven]

Personally, am more worried about Yellowstone volcano than any 'cane or major winter storm, etc.

you, when that s, that will be the end of the US as we know it.