By October, we usually have seen a parade of hurricanes in all the usual places — the Caribbean Sea, Gulf, and the Eastern Pacific off the coast of Mexico.
But on Oct. 2, 1858, 167 years ago today, one hurricane made a truly bizarre trip.
As the map below shows, this pre-Civil War hurricane tracked along the Southern California coast, from San Diego to Long Beach. It was only uncovered by a 2004 NOAA study.
While San Diego was only a settlement of about 4,000 residents at the time, wind damage was widespread near the coast and some flooding also occurred inland.
California is usually protected from direct hits by hurricanes and tropical storms because the warm ocean water that these storms feed off of drops off dramatically north of the southern tip of Baja California. This cooler water is supplied by the southward-moving ocean current known as the California Current.
The only other time the L.A. and San Diego metro areas have been directly hit by at least a tropical storm was in September 1939, when a tropical storm with winds of 50 mph made landfall near Long Beach. Flooding caused $2 million in property damage and high winds killed 45 people in this “Long Beach Storm.”
Remnants of former hurricanes and tropical storms have brought flooding rain and winds to Southern California much more often, including recently in 2023 (Hilary) and 2022 (Kay).
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.
