Originally Posted by
KathyWdrf
looked at the article….what was missing are all the other storms that passed Cabo and then moved inland before it got to califotnia but instead went into arizona.
there were many that missed. East affected the rainfall was the issue of it getting pulled and stretched
Originally Posted by
chrisl137
I'm well aware of what happened in the desert areas that were hard hit, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a lot of misguided media hype, more outside SoCal than inside it. On the scale of SoCal disasters, it wasn't a regional disaster. Even in normal winter rains there are areas that get hit by mudslides (usually recent burn areas). The eastern slopes of the mountains don't usually see that kind of rain, but they're also not heavily populated. The southern slopes don't see that kind of rain in summer, but regularly do in winter. Airports remained open, the transportation systems kept working, heavily impacted areas were small enough that emergency services weren't close to overwhelmed.
Even the article kind of says it was hype:
I got a number of contacts from people outside LA asking how bad things were (people don't do that when there are winter storms that are worse). I didn't see a lot of concern or hype inside SoCal - rain forecasts have been remarkably accurate for a while, even at very local levels, and just about everybody I know just shrugged and did their winter storm prep and went about their business.
the problem is— how bad could it have been when you try to plan 72 hrs in advance. The storm could slow down and stall dumping rain.
a few examples was the storm hitting Florida now with the rapid intensification from not much 36 hrs before landfall snd becoming a cat 4. Similar example was charley in 2004 thst hammered ft myers area where it crossed west Cuba as a nothing being impacted by Cuba them exploding to a major hurricane rapidly.
sure in winter SoCal could get more rain over a multi day event if the jet stream is pulling up Hawaiian moisture.
it’s also just a matter of time before SoCal gets one of these major low pressure systems that carry sustained 100+ winds on the coast. These have occured in PNW in winter where the remains of a typhoon gets into thr North Pacific still having strong winds and then getting fed with tropical moisture.