We are back live in the cnn newsroom. Im jim acosta in washington. We are tracking hurricane hilary. The system just weakened to a category 2 storm with winds of 110 miles per hour. The historic and potentially catastrophic storm is barrelling toward the southwestern United States, triggering the first ever Tropical Storm warning for millions of people in Southern California. The San Bernardino county Sheriffs Department just issued an Evacuation Warning for some areas in that part of Southern California. Thats just east of los angeles in the mountain and foothill areas. Hilary could bring a years worth of rain in a single day to parts of california, arizona, and nevada. Lets go straight to the cnn weather center, Meteorologist Derek Van Dam has been following the hurricanes path. I suppose its good news that the hurricane is weakening at some point, but that doesnt necessarily mean that people in that part of the country can let down their guards or folks in mexico as well. We should
experience on the east coast. might that have something to do with why the storm is weakening as rapidly as it is? or is it maybe we re seeing other factors at play? well, 100%. hurricanes, typhoons, tropical cyclones, do not like cold water. you start getting into water temperatures that are below 80 degrees, or you get perhaps some upwelling from a stronger storm system which is what we ve seen over the past 24 hours, this was a powerful cat 4 just 24 hours ago, so what it s doing is taking the cold water from below, also some of the coastal currents that are just off the coast of california and the baja peninsula, bringing the cooler water to this area. all of these working against the storm. it will help weaken it. that s the positive news because we want to see a weakening storm as it approaches the southwestern u.s., and we believe it will continue to do so. as it starts to impact or kind of get exchanged with the mountain ranges across this area, it will also help degrade th
today so that they could all do double hitters, and the u.s. navy has said that they are moving their ships and submarines temporarily out of san diego while this storm comes through. so, a lot of changes happening, a lot of preparations, including going to the encampments with loud speakers, making sure those unhoused people, of which there are so many here in southern california, typically enjoying the dry outdoor weather, letting them know it is time to find a place inside, jim. all right, natasha chen, please stay safe. hope everybody does the same. thank you so much. and we are monitoring yet another wildfire burning out of control. this one, just outside of spokane, washington. officials say at least one person is dead and nearly 200 structures damaged so far. the fire has not been contained. the county has declared a state of emergency, and some residents have been asked to evacuate their homes. we ll stay on top of that as that develops.
what we ve noticed is two important things about this track. not only is it speeding up, that forward speed continues to increase. it s also shifted a little further east. so, what that s going to do, just by the nature of the topography across the baja peninsula and into southern california, it means it will make landfall earlier than what we had anticipated, let s say, 12 hours ago. and also, with this increase in forward speed, if you ve been tuning in intermittently, this storm is more of a sunday storm for southern california and the southwestern u.s. so, we need, as weather kmurkters, to show you that because you may have anticipated a monday morning type of event but this is really sunday into monday and we have our flash flood threat across this region, a level four of four. some locations have never had this type of flood threat in all of its history. so, we re working on a major flooding potential with this system. this is the latest radar. dry along the coast, but look what
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