Core Of Tropical Storm Hilary Nearing Southern California, Streets Flooding In Los Angeles

As we get deeper into this, what you'll notice is that again the barometric pressure is increasing as we showed you in the last advisory, which means it's weakening, it's slowed down just a touch and again those winds are going down. I don't want to. let your guard down because the images you're seeing below still show the impacts that we're seeing in terms of

flooding

and we have only a handful of flash flood warnings that are still ongoing. The, for example, the second largest city in the United States is dealing with some flash

flooding

as we speak clearly with the video that you can see below me where we have already recorded between a half inch and an inch of rain so far and there will be more in I walk during the afternoon, evening and night.

Southern California, east of San Diego, also experienced flash flooding and it's not just flash flooding that we're seeing there, but there are rock slides, there are concerns about landslides, look at the number of

storm

reports that We've seen, a handful of

storm

reports. already driven again, we have received reports of not only large rocks on the road, so again the landslides, landslides and The Rock slides, but we have also received reports on the top of Big Black Mountain, 84 mile per hour winds, look at the rain we've collected so far in Mount Laguna California almost four inches of rain.

Death Valley, known to be the hottest place on the planet, only it averages about 100 of an inch of rain per year, has already accumulated more than two and a quarter inches. or fairly close to it and the breadth and depth of Hillary, I think is what's really striking: from San Diego and just west of Phoenix, it's the

tropical

storm wind field that we're seeing in the

southern

and west of Phoenix toward, you know. the western edges of Maricopa County, Yuma, Arizona and then towards Lake Havasu City and for our friends in San Diego, yes those are

tropical

storm force winds you are dealing with and look at the direction of the wind flow at least for the next moment.

It's coming from an east southeast direction running right up against the San Diego Mountains, while that's happening those mountains are squeezing out all kinds of moisture and it's the reason we're seeing those impressive rain totals still building up. It's also one of the reasons why when that wind is funneled through those mountains like this, if there's a mountain here and there's a mountain here and there's winter running through those mountains, there's a play of compression and again leads to those impressive wind gust speeds. over 75 miles per hour in Campo California and then for our friends, as we mentioned in Big Black Mountain, California, wind gusts over 80 to almost 85 miles per hour for several Americans, over 20 million Americans from Los Angeles, California, on I-5 as you head into San Diego and then cross Interstate Eight, we are under tropical storm warnings, the first time we have seen that in parts of the desert southwest of Los Angeles, the surrounding communities of Pasadena were included in that and then you realize that because of all the rain we've already seen and it's only going to increase in duration for at least the next 24 hours or so.

I should say 12 to 24 hours basically from Las Vegas to San Diego. That red shaded area here indicates extreme weather. flash flood threat again, we've already seen one to two inches of rain in places like Ocotillo, California, from an impressive video coming out of there that I've seen online, along I8, it's about 70 miles away approximately east of San Diego, where we've recorded some pretty incredible flooding and again, it's going to be towards the Imperial Valley for friends and family in Palm Springs and then down Interstate 15 as it heads towards Las Vegas, we're seeing that threat of flash flooding.

One of the reasons why, although we're not talking about demonstrative rainfall totals, we're not talking about eight to ten inches that have fallen to this point and we still see those videos of street flooding is because the ground like that is basically like concrete right when you, when the kids are having a water balloon fight on the grass, what happens, the water balloon pops, it gets soaked, no big deal, you have a water balloon fight on the concrete and the balloon explodes. and that water just sits there and then you think about the millions of gallons of water that we're going to see along Hillary's path on concrete or on soil that's almost impermeable, right, it has nowhere to go, of course, it flows. into some of those basins into some of the concrete washes into those stormwater channels and that's where we start to see flooding concerns, especially when they start to overtop those channels, so how much rain is still expected?

Several more inches of rain again. basically in this area and what you'll notice when we roll out our exclusive Fox bottle for you is the fact that that center of circulation will continue north of Bakersfield Fresno if you fly in or out of the airport there. in Fresno check those flights because, again, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a number of cancellations for delays and everything because of that in Las Vegas, same kind of story for you, Reno, the capital, same kind of story and, of course immediate, say the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges. I think we're going to end up seeing a lot of rain, so rain is going to be an issue and it's one of the reasons we have millions of Americans as we speak that are under flood watches right now when we get there tomorrow morning.

This is a sigh of relief when we say that tomorrow morning and even more so until tomorrow afternoon we will finally give the go-ahead in Southern California from Los Angeles on I-5 to San Diego before we get there, although there will be a lot rain, a little bit of wind there and a threat of flash flooding that we're going to have to deal with, so how much more rain is on the way to Los Angeles? That's two or three inches. I know and understand it completely. you join us from Chicago Detroit Philadelphia Cleveland you see two to three inches of rain and you say, yeah, that's a regular Tuesday for us, what's the problem with two to three inches of rain in Los Angeles when your monthly average in The month of August in Los Angeles is nothing more than a trace, so we are talking about multiple magnitudes of order greater than those two or three inches of rain in just a period of 24, 36 and 72 hours that can generate many problems.

Palm Springs, California, this is Going to be another Zone, it's surrounded by mountains, it's a beautiful place if you've ever been there. One of the reasons it is so picturesque is because of the beautiful mountains, although the problem is when you notice all that rain right here towards the Monorongo Valley. about 8 to 12 inches of rain, what happens there is the rain runs down the mountain and then towards the base of the mountains is where all that starts to congregate and all that water starts flowing, so think about the streams, the rivers and streams. Of course, we have the San Diego River, which is a huge catchment basin for a lot of that water runoff from the mountain tops and the same kind of story in Los Angeles, in all of these mountains you're going to see a lot of runoff and so So, in those concrete washes in those stormwater channels they will be potentially dangerous and, if not deadly, to be around, especially when they start to overtop, so let's talk a little more about the mechanics behind where Hillary is headed.

It is a large high pressure dome. This thing is responsible. by the way, for the immense heat, one thing we haven't really talked about much just because of the fact that Hillary has gotten all the attention is the fact that there is a huge heat bubble in the central plains of the United States . on the western edge of that heat bubble where we have that air flow from south to north and Hillary basically follows it and is funneled through that and as that happens, you'll notice that not only from San Diego to Los Angeles but all the way to Las Vegas , friends. and his family even as far north as Boise Idaho through Tuesday we could be talking about several inches of rain all these Hillary complements could we see outright flooding into Burns and northeast all the way to Burns Boise Idaho and just North of Boise, there is a very real and present danger for flooding and you will see that from Reno Nevada to Las Vegas and everywhere in between as we get to Monday and then early Tuesday morning in that midnight period. 36 hours, there is a major threat of flooding there. and again it means and is just a harbinger of what's to come from the salmon down to Twin Falls Winnemucca to Reno and even east of Redding California there is the threat of flash flooding.

I'm Amy Freeze, welcome to the Fox Weather YouTube page. We have more. Great videos on the way, so be sure to subscribe to stay up to date on all things weather.