A tropical storm is headed towards Southern California with the
potential to land right in San Diego's lap.
Good Wednesday evening. I'm Kathleen Bade.
Tropical Storm Hillary is still more than 1000 miles away
from San Diego,
but that doesn't mean the effects of that storm will
be felt here in the coming days.
We have team coverage on the storms track.
Brad Wills is in our weather center.
But first we go live to Jamie Chambers on Shelter
Island with what we can expect as Tropical Storm Hilary
approaches.
Jamie.
Carefully in the storm really is coming for us,
building right now just off the coast South of Cabo
San Lucas and then heading really when the models are
looking at it,
it's coming right towards San Diego.
Speaking to boaters out here on Shelter Island,
they're hearing about it for the first time.
It's time to batten down the hatches for boaters.
Heading into the weekend, I knew there was some winds
and rain coming.
I didn't realize it was a hurricane.
Tropical Storm Hillary is building into a full blown hurricane
and scientists are watching this weather event very closely.
Hillary's heading straight for us.
The only question is will something knock her off her
path?
Hillary is marking the eighth major storm to materialize off
the southern coast of Baja California.
Hurricane Dora originated in the same area and headed towards
Maui,
causing the fire in LA.
Now San Diego is seeing a trek that could hit
in just a few days.
She's on her way going to hit hurricane status and
then start dying down as the approach to San Diego.
So the question remains, how strong will Hillary be?
Professor Pat Abbott says San Diego's cooler waters could help
protect us from the worst possible outcomes.
Those colder waters offshore are going to suck a lot
of the energy out of out of Hillary.
So hurricane highly unlikely. Tropical storm Good possibility,
but Professor Abbott says people need to realize a weather
event is most likely going to hit us by the
weekend.
Hillary comes in with wins,
wind, damages, particularly to cultural properties,
trees, power lines falling. Colby Smith and his both the
sea traveler,
aren't taking any chances. Put it on the trailer Saturday
morning and be heading back back home.
And a lot of small craft will certainly be trailering
out of here if Hillary starts to make its way
directly to us.
For surfers, if Hillary pushes a little bit West,
we could see some really big surf.
If it stays E it might pass us by.
So the big question remains,
how much rain, how much wind will we see?
That's all pushing eyes towards Sunday,
when it would most likely be hitting our area.
That's the very latest from Shelter Island.
Jamie Chambers, Fox 5 News.