California
California caught in crosshairs of weather extremes in a warming world
Southern Californians are surfacing from a historic weekend of weather extremes after what may have been the first tropical storm to hit California’s coast in 84 years.
Tropical Storm Hilary, a probable combination of natural El Niño patterns and human-induced warming, dumped 2.48 inches of rain on downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, shattering the previous August daily record of 0.03 inches set in 1906, the National Weather Service reported.
The tropical storm definitely hit Baja California, but there are questions over whether it actually made landfall in the United States as a tropical storm.
Either way, it was widely seen as a harbinger of the state’s severe weather challenges in the future amid a warming world.
“Right out of the gate, we have the potential for stronger storms, and we also have the potential for storms that strengthen very, very quickly,” James Kossin, an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and consultant for the climate risk nonprofit First Street Foundation, told The Hill.
Hilary broke “virtually all rainfall daily records” and achieved “some impressive totals” across the region, the National Weather Service’s Los Angeles branch determined Monday.
Palmdale Airport received 3.93 inches of rain, breaking a record of 0.05 inches set in 1934.
Death Valley National Park reported 2.20 inches of rain Sunday, breaking last summer’s record of 1.70 inches, according to the weather service’s Las Vegas branch.
To complicate matters further, just hours after Hilary arrived Sunday, an unrelated magnitude 5.1 earthquake rattled areas southeast of the Ventura County city of Ojai, along the Sisar fault.
Wildfire relief
The storm did bring Southern California some tangible benefits by temporarily reducing the risk of wildfire in the region, according to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“There’s likely to be a prolonged reprieve for weeks, at least in Southern California and in places that got soaked on the eastern side of Sierra as well,” he said at his virtual office hours Monday afternoon.
That said, the Northern California Deep Fire, which began last week, grew to more than 3,000 acres over the weekend and began ripping through the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in Northern California. By Tuesday, the fire had expanded to 3,823 acres and was only 5 percent contained, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Hilary’s rainfall is not expected to offer significant relief from that fire.
Still, Swain stressed that aside from Northwestern California, fire season has been relatively “low-key” this year so far.
“California deserves a break after the last decade,” he said. “At some point, just by random luck, you’ve got to have another year that isn’t as crazy.”
But Swain also noted “the great irony” that California is experiencing such a respite when “almost everywhere else on Earth is experiencing almost continuously crazy, record-breaking, even record-shattering, heat extremes and flood events.”
California’s reprieve, he stressed, will presumably be “more of the exception rather than the norm moving forward,” after a decade of severe droughts, wildfires and extreme precipitation events.
Unique set of circumstances
Kossin, a former atmospheric scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), credited “a unique set of circumstances,” some natural and some mad-made, for Hilary’s development.
“What causes the warm water in this case is probably mostly the El Niño, and that is natural,” Kossin said. “But that’s not to say that there isn’t a human fingerprint on it. At this point, there’s a fingerprint on just about everything.”
Also at work was a giant “heat dome” — a high-pressure, circulating system that traps hot air — which was moving the airflow in a clockwise manner along the dome’s western edge, Kossin explained.
“Most of the time, these storms form and they just travel from east to west and move out to sea and maybe threaten Hawaii,” he said.
But with the so-called “steering flow” that accompanies the heat dome, winds from the south were steering the storm toward California, according to Kossin.
“Winds can change direction completely from one day to the next,” he said. “So that adds a certain amount of randomness to the whole thing.”
The weather service by early Monday had reclassified the storm as a post-tropical cyclone, which later moved on to soak Nevada before drenching Oregon and Idaho.
Although meteorologists are confident that Hilary first appeared on land in western Mexico, they are still trying to determine whether the storm also made a separate entrance from the ocean into California, rather than over the mountains east of San Diego.
“It’s clear that Hilary made an initial landfall in northern Baja California,” Swain said. “But what is less clear now — there may have actually been a second landfall.”
The storm appears to have traveled “more or less directly over San Diego” and parallel to the coastline, prior to “going inland directly over Los Angeles,” according to Swain.
“Did this storm end up being the first to have an actual California landfall at or above tropical storm strength since 1939?” the climate scientist asked.
The answer remains uncertain because “it was so close,” he explained, noting that “sports are not the only context where there’s postseason analysis.”
Acknowledging that the distinction doesn’t necessarily matter, Swain noted that this path could have caused Los Angeles and Ventura counties to see more rain than was initially anticipated.
Countering claims that minimize the storm’s effects as “minor street flooding,” Swain cited reports of “large debris flows that took out bridges, scoured canyons, knocked down long established trees and structures,” as well as residents who fled in the middle of the night.
He also noted that many of the interstates and highways across southeastern California were shut down entirely as the storm persisted.
But the damage could have been much greater had desert weather conditions earlier in the day Sunday been different — and had there been more sun over the Salton Sea rather than thick clouds, according to Swain.
While the area did receive almost the same amount of rain as predicted, stronger morning sunlight near the Salton Sea’s surface could have generated enough instability to maximize rain rates, he explained.
“There were certainly places that recorded rainfall rates of 1-2 inches per hour, but not 3-4 per hour,” the climate scientist said.
“It turns out that makes a huge difference,” he added, noting that flooding could have been twice as bad or worse.
The role of randomness
Emphasizing the role of randomness and the fact that daily variability played such an essential role in Hilary’s trajectory, Kossin, the Wisconsin-based atmospheric scientist, pointed out the difficulties in holding climate change responsible for this specific event.
Zooming out, however, it is possible to demonstrate a potential link between hurricane and tropical storm intensity and climate change — which Kossin and his colleagues revealed in a 2020 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers showed how maximum sustained winds in hurricanes are getting stronger, and that a warming planet may be responsible for this trend.
“You need a storm to be very strong so it can survive that trip across that cold California current,” Kossin said, noting that this usually bars storms from being named before reach the coast.
Not only did Hilary have that strength, but it also intensified very rapidly — a phenomenon that he described as “driven by ocean temperatures.”
The question remains, however, how much of that warming was the result of climate change and how much were due to of El Niño.
While many factors came together to influence Hilary’s development, the storm was probably “made more likely due to climate change,” according to Kossin.
“The likelihood of an event like Hilary is higher now than it used to be,” he added.
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What’s New
An incoming atmospheric river will bring 25-foot waves to the coastline in central California early next week, as well as heavy rain and strong winds.
Why It Matters
The Pacific Northwest is known for its atmospheric rivers, particularly during the winter months. The storms bring heavy rain and snow, typically to Oregon, Washington and California. Though the moisture-laden storms can help alleviate drought, they also pose life-threatening risks from mudslides and floods.
Back-to-back atmospheric rivers have already hit the West Coast this month, including one that brought heavy rain and strong winds to Washington and Oregon earlier this week.
Another few storms will barrel into the West Coast this weekend, with meteorologists expecting their impact to stretch further south into California. In addition to precipitation, the storm will spur large, dangerous waves that will break along the coast.
George Rose/Getty
What to Know
The high surf advisory will go into effect early Saturday morning. It stretches from Cloverdale to Monterey, according to a map from the National Weather Service (NWS).
Some of the advisories expire on Sunday, though the high surf advisory issued by the Los Angeles NWS office will remain in effect throughout next week.
Large, breaking waves are possible, along with dangerous rip currents. The biggest threat for large waves will be on west and northwest-facing beaches.
The highest forecast waves could hit up to 25 feet tall for Central Coast beaches from Monday into Tuesday. Waves will likely be smaller for the Santa Barbara South Coast beaches, reaching up to 12 feet on Monday and Tuesday. Ventura County beaches could see breaking waves of 8 to 12 feet with local set as high as 17 feet on Monday night into Tuesday.
What People Are Saying
NWS meteorologist Devin Black told Newsweek: “The storm system is generating winds. Pacific systems that come through our area tend to build way back west, and that allows the swells to really build.
“Average waves for Central Coast beaches are around 5 to 8 feet this time of year, meaning the incoming waves will be “pretty significant.”
NWS Los Angeles in a high surf advisory: “There is an increased risk for ocean drowning. Rip currents can pull swimmers and surfers out to sea. Large breaking waves can cause injury, wash people off beaches and rocks, and capsize small boats near shore.”
NWS San Francisco in a hydrologic outlook: “The storm door is wide open with a very active storm track forecast to impact Northern California. Wet and unsettled weather will bring periods of light to moderate rainfall to the region with the biggest impact expected over the North Bay.”
What Happens Next
The storms expected to hit the Golden State this weekend will “prime the soils” for storms to come later next week, potentially leading to dangerous water rises in area creeks and streams, the hydrologic outlook warned. Residents in the impacted area are urged to keep an eye on NWS weather alerts as the storms arrive, given that the storm set to hit Monday is “gearing up to be the strongest and wettest of the series.”
What’s New
More Americans left California between 2023 and 2024 than any other state across the country, according to new data released by the Census Bureau.
The Golden State lost a total of 239,575 residents to other states, the largest net domestic migration loss in the country over the past year. New York, another blue bastion in the country, saw the second-highest loss, losing a total of 120,917 residents between 2023 and 2024.
Why It Matters
The findings confirm an ongoing trend in the Western U.S. and specifically the Golden State, which has lost thousands of residents to the South in recent years, especially during the pandemic.
The California population drain, according to research compiled by the Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), is mainly due to people’s desire to live in more affordable places: several studies have found that the cost of housing alone is a key reason for people to leave the Golden State.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
California is among the top five states with the highest overall cost of living in the country, SIEPR reported. The median sale price of a home in the state, according to Redfin’s latest data, is $831,300, up 4.7 percent compared to a year earlier. That was nearly double the nationwide median sale price of a home at $430,010.
Most of those who’ve left California in recent years have gone to states like Texas and Arizona—a red state and a swing state, respectively. President-elect Donald Trump won both in November. Two-thirds of those who moved out of California told SIEPR that they didn’t do so because of politics, but the political impact of their decision is undeniable. One quarter told the institute that they had moved explicitly for political reasons.
What To Know
Where California is losing, Texas is gaining. The Lone Star State continues to welcome new residents and lead the country with the largest net domestic migration gain between 2023 and 2024, totaling 85,267 new residents over the past year. Texas has several benefits attracting people that California doesn’t offer: the state has no income tax, it’s cut off from the Western Interconnection electric system and has been building more new homes, whereas the Golden State is still going through a homelessness crisis and a housing shortage.
Overall, the U.S. population grew by nearly 1.0 percent between 2023 and 2024, surpassing 340 million in total. This population growth, the fastest the country has seen in a year since 2001, was mainly due to rising net international migration, the bureau reported. Net international migration refers to any change of residence across U.S. borders.
Newsweek contacted the Census Bureau for comment by email on Friday morning.
What People Are Saying
“California is no longer the preferred destination it used to be,” Hans Johnson, a demographer at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, told the Los Angeles Times in April, discussing the issue of people moving out of the Golden State.
What’s Next
It’s not all gloom and doom for California. The state was among 47 including the District of Columbia which experienced population gains of over 100,000 people between 2023 and 2024, adding a total of 232,570 residents in the past year. Despite the fact the state is trailing Texas and Florida, it still reported the third-highest numeric increase in the nation.
The Golden State had the second-highest increase in births outnumbering deaths (what’s known as natural increase) after Texas, at 110,466.
Together with Florida (411,322) and Texas (319,569), California saw one of the largest gains from international migration, at 361,057. Net international migration refers to any change of residence across U.S. borders.
The Golden State was also the most populous in the country, with an estimated population of 39,431,263 residents as of July 1, followed by Texas with 31,290,831 and Florida with 23,372,215.
Overall, the U.S. population grew by nearly 1.0 percent between 2023 and 2024, surpassing 340 million in total. This population growth, the fastest the country has seen in a year since 2001, was mainly due to rising net international migration, the bureau reported.
Should it continue, California’s population drain could drastically change the state’s job market and fiscal outlook, as well as cause the state to lose further congressional seats.
Have you left California for another state in the past few years? We’d love to hear your story. Contact g.carbonaro@newsweek.com
Feds arrest, charge former aide to New York governor as Chinese agent
Linda Sun, New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s former Deputy Chief of staff, , was arrested and charged as an undisclosed Chinese agent.
A man was charged for allegedly acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government while working as a campaign manager for a political candidate in Southern California who was elected in 2022 to the city council.
Yaoning “Mike” Sun, 64, was also accused of conspiring with another man — John Chen — who had been plotting to target U.S.-based practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice banned in China, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday. Chen was sentenced last month to 20 months in prison for acting as an unregistered agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and bribing an Internal Revenue Service agent.
Sun, a Chinese national who resided in Chino Hills, California, had served as the campaign manager and “close personal confidante” for a political candidate who ran for city council in Southern California in 2022, prosecutors said. According to the complaint, Sun communicated with Chen about his efforts to get the candidate elected.
“Chen allegedly discussed with Chinese government officials how the (People’s Republic of China) could ‘influence’ local politicians in the United States, particularly on the issue of Taiwan,” prosecutors said.
After the candidate was elected to office in November 2022, prosecutors alleged that Chen instructed Sun to submit reports on the election that could be sent to Chinese government officials. Chen remained in frequent contact with Sun and told him in early 2023 that the two men were “cultivating and assisting (politician’s) success,” according to the complaint.
In another exchange, prosecutors said Chen instructed Sun to refer to the politician as a “new political star” in a draft report. Chen also critiqued Sun’s draft report and suggested that he add information about their “past struggle fighting Taiwanese independence forces in a named California city over the years and fighting (Falun Gong) influences in that city,” according to the complaint.
The complaint added that in February 2023, Sun sent Chen a proposal to combat “anti-China forces” by participating in an Independence Day parade in Washington, D.C. Sun also requested that the Chinese government provide $80,000 to fund pro-PRC activities in the United States, the complaint states.
If convicted of all charges, Sun faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, according to prosecutors.
Sun’s arrest comes just months after a former aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and her predecessor Andrew Cuomo were charged with acting as an undisclosed agent of the Chinese government. Linda Sun, Hochul’s former deputy chief of staff, was arrested and pleaded not guilty in September.
U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement that Linda Sun had used her state government service “to further the interests of the Chinese government” and the Chinese Communist Party. “The illicit scheme enriched the defendant’s family to the tune of millions of dollars,” Peace added.
Contributing: Reuters
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