A worker from the Coachella Valley Water Department surveys debris flowing across a road following heavy rains from Tropical Storm Hilary, in Rancho Mirage, Calif., on Monday.
David Swanson/AFP via Getty Images
Hilary, the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in over 80 years, began to dissipate on Monday after walloping the region with record-breaking rainfall.
The storm is moving on to Nevada with less vigor after leaving millions of California residents under flood risk warnings, causing thousands of homes and businesses to lose power and shutting down major school districts.
The storm dropped as much as 7 inches of rainwater in some mountain regions and up to 4 inches in lower-lying areas as it moved from northern Baja California in Mexico into the United States, drenching California along the coast, in the mountains and in the Coachella Valley, home to the desert city of Palm Springs.
The National Weather Service Los Angeles said at 3 a.m. local time that the storm had broken “virtually all rainfall daily records.” A record rainfall of 2.48 inches was set in downtown Los Angeles, breaking the previous record of 0.03 set in 1906.
Early Monday, officials reclassified the storm as a post-tropical cyclone and forecast it would travel north through Nevada, posing more flood risks. But as of midday Monday, the damage appeared to be less than originally feared.
One storm-related death was reported in Mexico
“It seems like the public largely heard the message to prepare ahead of time and stay home, which helped a lot,” LAist reporter Erin Stone told Morning Edition on Monday. “So that old adage ‘better safe…
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