Has a hurricane ever hit California?
While no tropical storm has officially made landfall in Southern California, a handful of tropical storms have pounded the area throughout history and before official tracking and record-keeping began.
Flooding in the deserts of Southern California caused by Tropical Storm Hilary left several neighborhoods covered in thick mud.
With Hurricane Marie looming off the Mexican coast and Pacific waters warmer than usual due to El Niño, people are asking: Has a hurricane ever hit California in recorded history?
Officially, the answer is no, according to National Hurricane Center records dating back to 1949, but there are a couple of storms farther back in history that took a rare track into the state.
Tropical storms typically don't survive intact as they approach California, primarily because of colder waters. The water temperature off the Southern California coast in August is similar to that offshore of Atlantic Canada.
Hurricane Hilary and Kay made close passes in 2022, 2023
In 2022, Hurricane Kay was downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved close to the Southern California coast. This was the first tropical storm to have come within 200 miles of Los Angeles since the year 2000. Despite not making landfall, Tropical Storm Kay brought a year's worth of rain, flooding, mudslides and high winds to the area.
Hurricane Hilary made landfall in Mexico's Baja California Peninsula as a tropical storm on Aug. 20, 2023, and was tracked from San Diego to east of Fresno as a tropical rainstorm. Hilary caused extensive flooding and wind damage far inland in the state, resulting in $7-$9 billion in losses. The storm is considered the worst tropical storm to affect the state in the modern era.
A tropical storm made landfall in Los Angeles 87 years ago
Ten years before official records began, the worst tropical storm ever to hit California, colloquially known as "El Cordonazo" or "The Lash of St. Francis," made landfall in the Los Angeles area in late September 1939. It wasn't at hurricane force when it hit the coast, but was still strong enough to set rainfall records at the time -- almost 12 inches in some areas. Residents were so unprepared for tropical storms that the U.S. Weather Bureau, the precursor to the National Weather Service, created a new office for Southern California, which began operations the following year.
Other notable California tropical cyclones
The record rainfall associated with a tropical cyclone in California is 14.76 inches, recorded on San Gorgonio Mountain, 80 miles east of Los Angeles, during Tropical Rainstorm Kathleen in 1976. Kathleen was a bona fide hurricane that made landfall on the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico then tracked into Southern California as a tropical rainstorm after losing some of its wind intensity.
Other notable storms include Tropical Storm Jennifer-Katherine in 1963, which was a tropical depression when it tracked from Mexico over San Diego. Similarly, Hurricane Hyacinth in 1972 moved inland as a tropical depression near San Diego and quickly dissipated after that.
Later in 1978, Hurricane Norman made landfall on San Clementine Island, also as a tropical depression, before tracking over Long Beach, California, as an extratropical cyclone. Norman caused heavy rain across Central California.
In 1997, Hurricane Nora was officially tracked as a tropical storm in the easternmost part of California. The same year, Tropical Storm Ignacio took a path west of Santa Maria, California, as a tropical rainstorm.
As the water level starts to drop, drivers make their way through flash flooding caused by a monsoonal thunderstorm that quickly dropped three inches of rain on a region still recovering from Tropical Storm Hilary on September 1, 2023, in Thermal, California. Less than two weeks earlier, Tropical Storm Hilary, which had been a hurricane off the west coast of Mexico, brought unprecedented widespread flood damage to the Southern California desert region. Local road crews have been repair flood damage since then. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
Hurricane Rosa in 2018 soaked not only Baja California but also reached as far as Phoenix, where heavy rain put it in the history books as one of the wettest days on record for the city and left cars stranded in the streets due to flooding.
Strongest hurricane in basin was once projected to hit L.A.
In September 1997, the strongest hurricane ever observed in the Eastern Pacific basin, Category 5 Hurricane Linda, was, at one time, projected to hit Southern California, albeit as a tropical storm.
A U.S. Navy graphic shows the forecast of Hurricane Linda on Sept. 12, 1997 moving towards southern California as a tropical storm.
Although no official watches or warnings were issued, the NWS office in Los Angeles discussed the possible impacts in the area in its state forecast discussion -- and asked the media not to overdramatize the storm. Linda later turned westward, and only large waves affected California.
The "San Diego Hurricane" of 1858
Originally unknown to the broader meteorological community, a hurricane did make landfall in San Diego, over a century before such storms were tracked in any official way. At the time of the hurricane, San Diego County was small, with a population just shy of 4,500. Now, the county has an estimated population of 3.2 million. The damage then was likely confined to coastal areas, but heavy wind, rain and flooding were still felt by those living inland.
