MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Hilary hurtled towards Mexico’s Baja California peninsula on Sunday, blanketing the region with heavy rain amid warnings of catastrophic and life-threatening flooding on the peninsula and in the U.S. Southwest.
Hilary, which had earlier been designated a Category Four hurricane, was downgraded to a Tropical Storm on Sunday morning, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
One man died in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur when a family of five was swept away into the sea while crossing a stream, according to a Mexican official, who also shared images of flooding and roads that were swept away in the area.
In the United States, the storm disrupted flights and sports games before it arrived.
Hilary, the wettest storm ever to hit the U.S. Southwest, will bring more rain than many areas in Southern California and Southern Nevada normally receive in a whole year, said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.
“This is a dangerous storm,” Taylor said. “It’s not just the rain totals but the intensity. This is the wettest rainfall from a tropical storm to hit the Western U.S.”
Early on Sunday, the storm was carrying top sustained winds of 70 mph (110 kph) and its center was forecast to move near or over the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula and then move across Southern California on Sunday afternoon.
Storm surges – when the ocean is pushed inland – could produce coastal flooding in parts of Baja California and the hurricane was carrying heavy rain that could cause catastrophic flooding in some areas, the NHC said.
Rainfall of 3 to 6 inches (7.6 to 15 cm), with isolated amounts of 10 inches, was expected across the northern Baja California peninsula as well as portions of Southern California and Southern Nevada, the Miami-based agency said in its latest advisory.
As of 1500 GMT, Hilary was about 220 (350 km) miles south-southeast of San Diego, California, the forecaster said. It was moving north-northwest at 25 mph (41 kph).
U.S. President Joe Biden received a briefing on Saturday from senior staff on preparations for Hilary, the White House said.
In the Baja California peninsula, some school and other non-essential activities were canceled through Monday, and authorities in Mexico’s second-largest city, Tijuana, urged people in high-risk zones to move to temporary shelters.
Images shared on social media showed flash floods in the coastal town of Santa Rosalia, on the eastern side of the Baja California peninsula, with water gushing down what used to be a road, sweeping away a tree.
Some 30 miles (48 km) south, in the town of Mulege, where the one person died when crossing a stream, Municipal President Edith Aguilar Villavicencio said on her Facebook account that Mexico’s navy and local firefighters were rescuing people.
U.S. authorities in affected areas warned residents and businesses to take precautions.
Nearly 200 flights scheduled for Sunday at the San Diego International Airport have been canceled and another 184 on Monday, according to the FlightAware website.
In California, Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles-based Dodgers and Angels brought their Sunday games forward to Saturday to turn them into split doubleheaders.
The city’s soccer teams, Los Angeles FC and LA Galaxy, both postponed their Sunday matches due to threat of heavy rains and flooding.
(Reporting by Drazen Jorgic in Mexico City, and Steve Holland and Michael Martina in Washington; Additional reporting by Bharat Govind Gautam in Bengaluru and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Frances Kerry and Matthew Lewis)
