On Thursday night, Hurricane Hilary intensified to a Category 4 hurricane, as reported by the National Weather Service.

The hurricane is anticipated to reach Southern California, bringing heavy rainfall as soon as this upcoming weekend, following its trajectory up Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula.

Weather experts project that the storm will generate between 3 to 6 inches of rainfall, with potential maximum accumulations of up to 10 inches, across select areas of Baja California until Sunday night. This precipitation could result in the risk of flash flooding.

The affected region is also likely to experience “damaging wind gusts,” especially in elevated areas, accompanied by coastal swells, shared Greg Postel, a hurricane and storm specialist at the Weather Channel, in conversation with CBS News.

Although the storm is projected to weaken from hurricane status by the time it reaches California, it is forecasted to bring substantial rainfall to the southwestern United States, commencing on Friday and persisting until early next week. The peak of this impact is anticipated to occur on Sunday and Monday, as stated by the National Hurricane Center.

Greg Postel noted, “It is rare — indeed nearly unprecedented in the modern record — to have a tropical system like this move through Southern California,” in dialogue with CBS News.

The last instance of a tropical storm impacting Southern California occurred in 1939, prior to the naming of storms. David Parkinson, CBS News senior weather and climate producer, noted that while a few storms with previous hurricane or tropical storm status have affected the state since then, they had generally weakened to sub-tropical systems by the time of impact.

The projected trajectory indicates the possibility of landfall spanning from the Baja California Peninsula to as far north as Santa Barbara, California. According to one model, the heaviest rainfall is anticipated in the Palm Springs region subsequent to the storm’s landfall.

Source: CBS NEWS