State of emergency? Ha ha, what's that?

[regexcellent]

The city of Rochester and surrounding Monroe County, as well as the State of New York, are all in a state of emergency and the governor has activated units of the National Guard. My power has been flickering on and off for the past hour. RIT remains open and classes are not canceled.

[SlowwHand]

And you're going? Sucker.

[giblets]

How come California never seems to get hit by hurricanes? Just wondering.

[Hauldren Collider]

Hurricanes only happen in the Atlantic. When they occur in the Pacific they are called cyclones. Southern California and the Mexican state of Baja California get hit with cyclones occasionally.

[SlowwHand]

Typhoons. Cyclone is a tornado.

[Hauldren Collider]

nvm

[-Jrabbit]

Hoping all Polytubbies on the East Coast are OK and will check in when they can.

[Kidlicious]

How come California never seems to get hit by hurricanes? Just wondering.

There are two reasons why tropical cyclones rarely strike California: sea surface temperatures, and the usual upper level steering winds in the eastern Pacific, with sea surface temperature being the most important.

Tropical cyclones usually require very warm water to depth, generally above 26.5 °C (80 °F) extending to a depth of 50 metres (160 ft).[3]

The waters off California are cold even in summer. They rarely rise above 24 °C (75 °F) in near-shore southern California,[4] and usually don't get above 17 °C (63 °F) along most of the rest of the coast and outer coastal waters, although El Niño events may warm the waters somewhat. This is due primarily to the extensive upwelling of colder sub-surface waters caused by the prevailing northwesterly winds acting through the Ekman Effect. The winds drive surface water to the right of the wind flow, that is offshore, which draws water up from below to replace it. The upwelling further cools the already cool California Current which runs north to south along coastal California and even much of coastal Baja California. This is the same mechanism which produces coastal California's characteristic fog.

The second reason is the general path of tropical cyclones in the eastern Pacific. They generally move north-westward or westward due to steering by the prevailing upper level winds, which takes them far out to sea and away from land.[4]

These factors make eastern Pacific landfalls improbable north of about central Baja California. In those instances when upper level steering winds do allow a more northerly path, much cooler sea surface temperatures quickly weaken tropical cyclones that approach California, although torrential rainfall can still occur. For example, the September 24-hour rainfall record for Los Angeles is held by the 1939 Long Beach Tropical Storm, as of January 2007.[5]

I googled for you.

[Asher]

Hurricanes only happen in the Atlantic. When they occur in the Pacific they are called cyclones. Southern California and the Mexican state of Baja California get hit with cyclones occasionally.

[Elok]

Hoping all Polytubbies on the East Coast are OK and will check in when they can.

Doing fine. Sandy passed by last night; I think some nearby roads are flooded but we never lost power or even satellite. I just missed a day of work. Might miss work today too, depending on whether the roads cleared. Eh. We'll sort it out.

[snoopy369]

How come California never seems to get hit by hurricanes? Just wondering.

Clearly California is beloved of God while the south Atlantic in particular is full of heathens and apostates.

[Wezil]

Doing fine.

I'm a long way from the centre of the storm yet the winds here were crazy.

[ColdWizard]

Power didn't go out, local low-lying roads are flooded. Apparently the June derecho knocked down the weak trees already so not as much came down this time.

[Elok]

We just sat around inside watching the ridiculous Star Trek remake. It really does take a second viewing to understand all the many, many things that make no damned sense about that movie.

[ColdWizard]

There was no remake, there is no JJ Abrams.