A tale of two storms

The super El Niño building in the eastern Pacific has caused some weird changes to this tropical storm season.

Last night, Hurricane Isaias came ashore in the Florida Panhandle as a category-2 storm and is now dumping huge amounts of rain on Alabama. A moderate hurricane hitting Florida is a nearly-annual event, of course, but this hurricane was the first of the season, making 2026 one of only three seasons on record without a hurricane until this late in the year.

Meanwhile, across the continent, Tropical Storm Rachel is moving northeast off the Baja California coast on a direct path for San Diego and Las Vegas. This has put San Diego under a tropical storm watch for only the second time in history, with up to 45 mm of rain and 2-meter waves expected tonight through tomorrow morning. Now, 45 mm of rain isn't a lot for Chicago, but San Diego hasn't had any rain since May and normally gets 10 mm of rain in the entire month of October. Las Vegas is also expecting up to 25 mm of rain, which would double the area's rainfall for all of 2026.

We have not known what this unprecedented El Niño would do this winter, because "unprecedented." Normally El Niño years see more precipitation in the southwest. That part of the pattern seems to be happening. I'll be interested to see what else this global-warming-enhanced monster does over the next six months, before neutral ENSO conditions are expected to return.