1939 California tropical storm

Common card · No. 385441

The 1939 California tropical storm, also known as the 1939 Long Beach tropical storm, and El Cordonazo (referring to the Cordonazo winds or the "Lash of St. Francis" (Spanish: el cordonazo de San Francisco)), was a tropical cyclone that affected Southern California in September 1939. Forming on September 15, the cyclone intensified into a hurricane, but weakened to a tropical storm before making landfall near the San Pedro neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, on September 25. It was the first tropical cyclone to directly affect California since the 1858 San Diego hurricane, and is the only tropical cyclone of tropical-storm strength (or greater) to make landfall in the U.S. state of California. The storm brought heavy flooding due to record-breaking rainfall, including a total of 11.6 in (290 mm) of precipitation on Mount Wilson and amounts in excess of 4 in (100 mm) at several locations in Greater Los Angeles. In addition to inundating roads and damaging buildings, the floods caused...

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