California braces for arrival of Hurricane Hilary

The US authorities of California is bracing itself for Hurricane Hilary, which is already bringing fierce winds and flooding to Mexico's Pacific coast.

It is lashing the Mexican authorities of Baja California with winds of up to 85 mph (140km/h). Hilary is past expected to suffer velocity arsenic it moves north.

It is predicted to scope confederate California arsenic a tropical storm, the archetypal to scope that authorities successful 84 years.

There are warnings of "catastrophic" floods successful some countries.

One antheral died successful Baja California Sur authorities portion attempting to transverse a stream, Mexican officials said.

The Mexican authorities has placed 18,000 soldiers connected standby to assistance successful rescue efforts. Nearly 26 cardinal radical successful the south-western US are nether flood watch.

Hilary was downgraded to a Category 1 tempest aft weakening connected Saturday, but officials kept up their warnings.

In its first-ever tropical tempest alert for California, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said "life-threatening flooding" was apt successful Baja California and the US south-west.

Nancy Ward, manager of the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, said Hilary could beryllium 1 of the worst storms to deed the authorities successful much than a decade.

"Make nary mistake," she told a property league connected Saturday. "This is simply a very, precise unsafe and important storm."

Up to 10 successful (25cm) of rainfall is expected successful parts of Mexico, California and Nevada, according to the NHC.

There is simply a hazard of tornadoes from mid-morning done Sunday evening successful parts of the Colorado River Valley, Mojave Desert and Imperial Valley.

As the tempest approached, Major League Baseball rescheduled 3 games successful confederate California, portion SpaceX postponed the motorboat of a rocket from its basal connected the cardinal California seashore until astatine slightest Monday.

The National Park Service besides closed Joshua Tree National Park and Mojave National Preserve, some successful California, to forestall visitors from being stranded successful the lawsuit of flooding.

Hurricanes and tropical storms are somewhat communal successful Mexico. But the past clip a tropical tempest made landfall successful confederate California was successful Long Beach successful 1939.

Experts accidental the abnormal upwind events plaguing the US - and respective areas crossed the globe - are being influenced by human-caused clime change.

In the aftermath of the hottest period connected record, July 2023, according to Nasa, the deadliest wildfire successful modern US past dispersed crossed Hawaii connected 8 August, sidesplitting astatine slightest 111 people.

The harm was escalated by hurricane winds passing done the area.