Hurricane Patricia is the strongest hurricane in recorded history with maximum sustained winds of 205 mph, comparable to a 60 mile wide EF5 Tornado, and it is heading into North America. But what are the effects going to be for Southern California? The question was asked to me hundreds of times today and your answer is … Read on …
No direct impacts … unless you are in Mexico or the Gulf States you won’t see a lick of impacts from this. There is however Hurricane Olaf, who wants warm hugs down east of Hawaii. Hurricane Olaf will move east-northeast toward California over the next few days. Some models have a tropical storm into San Francisco … but it seems unrealistic right now. It seems as if the storm would merge with a trough to the north and then drag a tail-end charlie cold front into Southern California before Halloween. Tracking the changes in the long range forecast center now on the main Southern California Weather Force website.
It is not a for sure thing for precipitation toward the end of the month … but we’re actually starting to wonder if the first stronger offshore flow (Santa Ana Wind) wants to hit by Halloween … because with a tail-end charlie front into the area … a system would dive southeast through Nevada as a result and we’d have some good offshore flow dynamics to work with.
Furthermore, Hurricane Patricia may have in-direct effects on us. Ever threw a wrench in a sprocket system? Yeah you could damage it couldn’t you? Strong Hurricanes like this have changed the temporary future pattern and since this is close to us the pattern is starting to change already … We still need a storm before November 15th to ensure the season remains on track … however with this type of storm even long range forecasts will not be possible for a bit. Patricia has thrown a wrench into the atmospheric system and this will have a butterfly effect for the next month on our hemisphere. Make your coffee have swirls and then put your finger in the pattern … it changes from what it would have been. That’s the wrench in the system …
She is a direct result of the Super El Nino …
So no questions can be answered right now on anything … except these points.
1. Patricia will not directly affect us.
2. She will INDIRECTLY affect us with changing the temp pattern for a month.
3. Weak front before Halloween.
4. Santa Ana Winds just before or on Halloween.