Hurricane Hilary is being hailed as a historic storm after becoming the first tropical storm to hit California since Sept. 24, 1939. The storm has had a large impact on the region - in addition to gusty winds, Hilary’s rains have resulted in widespread flooding, landslides, washed out roads and numerous other closures. Like most East Pacific tropical cyclones, Hilary originated from a westward propagating tropical wave that crossed over Central America from the western Caribbean into the eastern Pacific. Known as “African easterly waves”, these are the same waves that emerge off the coast of

The Northwest Pacific typhoon season has been quite active recently. Following in the wake of Super Typhoon Doksuri, which skirted the northern tip of Luzon July 25 and 26 and continued on to bring extreme rainfall to southeast coast of China, is yet another powerful storm - Typhoon Khanun. Khanun (known as “Falcon” in the Philippines) began in the West Pacific Ocean as an area of disturbed weather on July 24 situated well south of Guam and east of Palau. Over the next several days the system slowly intensified as it tracked northwestward towards the Ryuku Islands of southern Japan, becoming a

After a quiet start, the 2023 eastern Pacific hurricane season recently picked up in activity with the formation of the season’s first major hurricane, Hurricane Calvin. Calvin originated on July 11 from an area of low pressure located about 510 miles (~820 km) south-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, which had become organized enough for the National Hurricane Center (NHC) to declare it Tropical Depression 3E (TD 3E) that afternoon. Located over warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) of around 84 oF (29 oC), thunderstorm activity near the center of TD 3E continued to increase overnight, and