No hurricane for Malibu, but big surf and rip currents likely Play

About that tropical storm that's going to hit Malibu next week, maybe a hurricane — not going to happen.

Ariel Cohen is the chief meteorologist at the National Weather Service office up in Oxnard. He says the hurricane could disrupt things here by sending us rain in the form of energy across the ocean surface, rain and waves heading towards Malibu beaches. "El Niño conditions have brought about — or are associated rather with — warmer than normal water temperatures, especially over the equatorial waters, the lower latitude waters of the northern hemisphere. What that does, it adds energy, fuel, to these tropical systems."

It's not the hurricane that's going to come ashore in Malibu — although we might get a little rain this weekend — rather, it's waves and high tides. "This will have the potential to bring very powerful rip currents to the area. We could have significant beach erosion occur as tremendous amounts of energy spread over the coastal area."

A bunch of thunderstorms 800 miles south of Baja California have coalesced into Tropical Storm Mario Tuesday morning, and some forecast models do show rain heading towards Southern California Monday. Even though the Pacific Ocean is warmer than we've ever seen, it's still too cold to allow a tropical storm to move north, much less a hurricane.

Dr. Daniel Swain at UCLA on Monday said there are still two barriers to tropical storms or hurricanes arriving here in California. The main barrier: it's just too cold. "Even with record warm water right now off the coast of Southern California, even with water temperatures that are starting to approach 80 degrees Fahrenheit — and they might get there in the next couple of weeks in some places — that still isn't warm enough. You'd need water even a few degrees warmer than that, and over a deeper layer of the ocean, because the ocean likes to churn up that surface water."

Swain says there's one other important reason why hurricanes do not move to the east out of the Pacific — the earth spins in the opposite direction. "The water's too cold. There's no gas in the gas tank, first of all. Number two, there is a propensity for storms to move away from shore along the west coast of North America."

Historically, one tropical storm has made direct landfall in California. It hit Long Beach in 1939. But no hurricane has ever done that. The remnants of Hurricane Hilary did come across California two years ago. It caused a billion dollars in damage, flooding and mudslides mostly. But NOAA has now reexamined its data, and Tropical Storm Hilary had already degenerated over northern Baja California before it hit the US.