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Could Hurricane Jimena affect Arizona?

// August 30th, 2009 // weather

How often do hurricanes affect Arizona? According to Wikipedia, it’s about once every five years. However, when they DO affect us, it’s mostly the leftover moisture and remnants of the hurricane that gives us rain and thunderstorms.

As an example, last year Julio’s remnants moved into Arizona during monsoon season and caused some fairly severe thunderstorms. If you recall the ASU football bubble practice facility was completely destroyed during a very bad storm that produced almost 100mph winds and left a tornado-like signature on the radar.

I remember that night well because the lightning from a storm that hit us in Chandler never seemed to stop flashing. I’d never seen anything like it. It was non-stop flashes of lightning for almost thirty minutes.

Hurricane Jimena is now south of Baja California and is a category 3 hurricane. That’s halfway to a very bad category 5 and while it’s not expect to get to a 5, it may get to a 4.

The prediction for the storm is basically a path straight up the Baja. When it hits there, it will drop to a category 1 and then fade to a tropical storm, then depression.

However, once it hits Baja, who knows where it may go. Some of the computer models show it nicking southern Arizona and moving into New Mexico and Texas. Will this be enough moisture to bring us some nice rain?

I’m always hopeful for something like this because it just adds a little excitement to our monsoon season, which, let’s face it, has been pretty awful this year.

I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, here are some current pics of Jimena.