Latest Hurricane News

Hurricane Blanca Recap: Rare June Baja Landfall and Western Rain

Hurricane Blanca was a notably early second major hurricane of the season, early landfall in Baja California, and its remnant moisture provided notably early rain in parts of the Desert Southwest.

Blanca's History

Tropical Storm Blanca's center made landfall in the southern Baja California peninsula near the town of Puerto Cortes early Monday, June 8, with maximum sustained winds estimated at 45 mph.

Blanca became the earliest-in-season tropical cyclone to make landfall in the Baja peninsula. According to NOAA's database, only one other pre-July 1 tropical cyclone tracked within 150 nautical miles of the southern Baja peninsula, a Jun. 14, 1958 Category 1 hurricane whose center passed just south of Los Cabos.

Blanca was downgraded to a depression that afternoon, and the final advisory for Blanca was issued the following morning.

Sustained winds reached 46 mph in Cabo San Lucas International Airport late Sunday afternoon. Winds gusted to 40 mph in La Paz, Mexico on the eastern edge of the Baja peninsula.

As of late Monday morning, June 8, up to 5.18 inches of rain was measured unofficially in Loreto, Mexico.

Overnight Saturday night, June 6, as Blanca made its closest approach, an automated station on Socorro Island recorded a peak sustained wind of 74 mph and gust to 101 mph. Socorro Island is a volcanic island about 290 miles south-southwest of Cabo San Lucas.

Blanca's intensity fluctuated up and down throughout its existence, at times allowing it to strengthen into a formidable hurricane.

Blanca rapidly morphed into a major hurricane off the Mexican Pacific Coast, reaching Category 4 status on June 3. This made Blanca the earliest-in-season second major hurricane – Category 3 or stronger – of record in the eastern Pacific basin dating to 1971.

Blanca then weakened to a Category 1 hurricane June 5 due to the storm's ingesting of dry air to its north and churning up slightly cooler water while essentially standing still for 3 days.

Blanca was then able to take advantage of an environment that featured low wind shear and deep, warm waters which fueled the system again June 6 as it moved to the northwest. As a result, Blanca strengthened to Category 4 status once again.

Late June 6 into early June 7, Blanca began its final weakening phase as it encountered cooler water temperatures and unfavorable winds aloft along its path, and the cyclone eventually weakened into a Category 1 hurricane early on June 6 before diminishing to a tropical storm later that day.

Strange Early June Southwest Rain

A somewhat strange early June pattern delivered some early-season leftover moisture from Blanca to parts of the Desert Southwest and southern Rockies.

Water vapor satellite image in the early morning hours of June 9, 2015 depicting mid-level moist plume (denoted by gray and white shadings) partially from remnant of what was once Hurricane Blanca, pushing into the Desert Southwest and Southern California.

A closed area of low pressure aloft off the California coast, together with a dome of high pressure aloft over northern Mexico set up a pipeline of moisture from the Gulf of California, Baja, and eastern Pacific into parts of the Great Basin, Desert Southwest and Rockies early this week.

The upshot of all this was an increasing threat of rain and thunderstorms, along with a more humid air mass than one would normally expect in the Desert Southwest and Great Basin in early June.

(MORE: How Eastern Pacific Hurricanes Can Impact the U.S.)

This enhanced rain and thunderstorm threat began Tuesday in parts of Arizona and New Mexico. From there, it spread north into the Great Basin, central and southern Rockies Wednesday. Thunderstorms even fired over parts of interior northern California and the Sierra.

Tucson, Arizona, picked up 0.21 inches of rainfall from Blanca's moisture. This exceeds their average rainfall for the entire month of June which is 0.20 inches (1981-2010).

Measurable rain fell in Yuma, Arizona, on Tuesday for just the seventeenth time in June since records began in 1876. Yuma had seen 0.31 inches of rain, which makes it the second wettest June on record in the city.

Parts of California also saw rain from this setup.

While only amounting to 0.30 inches of rain, Santa Barbara, California had its third wettest June day on record, Tuesday, June 9. San Francisco International Airport picked up 0.26 inches of rain the following day, more than double the average June monthly rainfall of 0.11 inches.

In most years, the wet phase of the North American monsoon, a much weaker version of the more famous Indian/Asian monsoon, imports increasing moisture into the Desert Southwest and northwest Mexico by mid-July.

As a result, thunderstorms fire up most afternoons and evenings, particularly over the higher terrain of the Desert Southwest.

Prior to that, it is typically extremely hot and dry in June.

June is the driest month, on average, in Phoenix, where a paltry 0.02 inches is typically measured at Sky Harbor Airport. The record daily rainfall during the first 11 days of June is only 0.41 inches, recorded 100 years ago on June 3, 1915.

But thanks to that moisture plume from former Hurricane Andres, Phoenix recorded 0.16 inch of rain Friday – the first time Arizona's capital has ever recorded measurable precipitation on June 5 since records began in 1895.

Average rainfall increases by a factor of 52 in July, their average wettest month (1.05 inches).