Why do hurricanes occasionally strike Maine and parts of Canada, but not Los Angeles or other parts of SoCal?

Very apt username.

Waters of the east coast of the US come up from the Caribbean, and weather patterns follow.

Meanwhile, waters of the west coast come down from Alaska. Warm water is necessary of hurricanes, which makes them exceptionally rare in the area of Alaska.

Water temps are too cold that far north in the Pacific to support hurricanes. In the Atlantic, however, the Gulf Stream keeps the ocean warmer at a much higher latitude.

Conditions in the Atlantic are generally not as favorable for storms to form as they are in the Eastern Pacific. So you get more storms forming off the coast of Mexico, but then as they move northwest, the water gets cold, they weaken, and the weaker storms are steered more westerly rather than re-curving north and north-east into California.

Mother Nature wouldn't think of messing with me.

The prevailing currents and winds in the northern hemisphere are clockwise. Storms that form in the mid-Atlantic and Caribbean get pushed into the US, not Europe and Africa. Storms that form off the west coast of Mexico get pushed out into the Pacific, not the US or Mexico.

Dick Cheyney and his hurricaine machine will soon strike!

it's because there are no hurricanes in the pacific. typhoons aplenty, but no hurricanes.

They are same thing, dumb ass. Diff areas use diff names.

The eastern and central Pacific use "hurricane", while the western pacific uses "typhoon".

so cal resident wrote:

Mother Nature wouldn't think of messing with me.

You're right, I wouldn't mess with you by sending a hurricane or a huge damn fire...oh, wait.

Mother Nature wrote:

so cal resident wrote:

Mother Nature wouldn't think of messing with me.

You're right, I wouldn't mess with you by sending a hurricane or a huge damn fire...oh, wait.

you forgot massive earthquake, Mother.

Because of Natural Selection. The strongest and mightiest people inhabit regions with the best climate. The weak and feeble inhabit regions with hurricanes, hot and humid summers, freezing, snowing, and rainy winters. Hope this helps.

With no Earthquake Season, I'll take the occassional quake once every generation, versus an annual succession of major storms and cyclones.

Here you go, shithead:

Category 4 hurricane bearing down on Baja California

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/weather/08/31/hurricane.jimena/index.html

Here you go. This has an interesting history.

shonuff. wrote:

Because of the gangs and gang violence.

It's actually theoretically possible and happens once in a great while- a San Diego or Los Angeles hurricane strike is somewhere between a 100 and 200 year weather event, and the area gets tropical storms 3-5 times each century. And the National Hurricane Center does have breakpoints (locations used when issuing emergency bulletins) for California listed as far north as Point Conception near Lompoc.

But you generally don't see them because of the combination of cold water temperatures and steering currents- in addition to recurve toward Arizona, the usual air currents in the region are far more likely to push storm toward Hawaii than let them come northward.

To get hurricane or tropical storm to make it to SoCal, atmospheric conditions have to be perfect to allow a storm to move quick enough through a region it doesn't usually go so that the cold waters don't affect it so much.