How Eastern Pacific's Lorena is predicted to impact US weather

The Atlantic Ocean isn't the only basin heating up as the end of summer nears. The eastern Pacific basin has also sprung to life with tropical activity this week.

Lorena became a hurricane on Wednesday night, but weakened to a strong tropical storm Thursday morning. Lorena regained hurricane status early Friday morning. Tropical Storms Mario and Kiko also continue to churn in the basin.

Lorena will continue to skirt the coast of western Mexico with heavy rain, strong winds and battering surf through Friday, and the tropical cyclone may eventually have an indirect, but significant impact on the United States.

Moisture is likely to be sheared northeastward from the tropical cyclone and eventually the diminishing center of the storm itself may be steered northeastward.

This chain of events is forecast to occur later this weekend into early next week as a non-tropical storm and the jet stream drop across the western United States.

As this happens, locally heavy rain is anticipated to stream northeastward and break out over northwestern Mexico to part of the southwestern U.S.

Any non-excessive rain that were to fall on the region would be welcomed. However, enough rain may fall to trigger flash flooding and debris flows, due to the arid terrain in the region.

"Exactly how much rain falls and which areas may be hit the hardest with flooding cannot be determined at this early stage," Eric Leister, an AccuWeather global weather expert, said.

"These conditions will depend on the exact track of Lorena and how far south the non-tropical features dip over the Southwest," Leister said.

Similar weather patterns have unleashed tremendous rainfall and widespread flooding in the past. However, every situation is different.

However, it appears likely that some heavy rain and flooding are in store for parts of Arizona, New Mexico, southeastern California, western Texas and the southern parts of Nevada, Utah and Colorado next week.

The rainfall could be much more significant than the spotty shower and thunderstorm activity that has been riddling parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado during recent afternoons.

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