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"It never storms in southern California"

  California is prone from time-to-time to differents types of natural or
man-made disasters... such as earthquakes, floods, mudslides and brushfires.

But...the question that many Californian's wonder about is why tropical storms or hurricanes never move onshore in California?

There are basically 2 reasons why Californian's don't have to worry about being impacted by tropical systems.
  1. Both Atlantic and Pacific tropical systems tend to move with the tradewinds toward the west-northwest. These storms typically form off the coast of central/southern Mexico and track west/northwest away from any shoreline. Occasionally the prevailing trade winds will be blowing in a northwesterly direction and will direct the tropical storm more in a north/northwesterly direction.

    When this situation occurs... on average these storms will have an impact on Baja California. During these types of pattern develops...moisture from these tropical systems will circulate into the southwestern United States and often bring an increasing threat of thunderstorms and potential of heavy rains...including at times...southern California.
  2. The other major reason is the water temperature is too cool off the California coast to substain any tropical system. Simply... tropical systems need warm water for fuel.

    Tropical systems need water temperatures above 80 degrees fahrenheit to survive...and rarely water temperature exceed 70 degrees fahrenheit along the coast of California.


The last time California took a direct hit from a tropical storm was on September 25th, 1939.

The storm move inland near Long Beach and killed 45 people. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph.

In September of 1997...Hurricane "Linda" for a brief time threatened San Diego County...but fizzled quickly before even coming close to the area.

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