Twin tropical storms hit both US coasts with flooding and blackouts | Today’s news

More than 440,000 homes and businesses from Pennsylvania to Florida are without power and threats of flooding are growing at both ends of the country as the US deals with a rare double tropical threat from the remnants of storms Isaias off the Atlantic and Rachel moving southwest from the Pacific.

In the east, 441,749 homes and businesses were without power as the remnants of Isaias moved across Tennessee early Sunday, according to PowerOutage.com. The storm came ashore Friday night as a Category 2 hurricane, killing at least four people, according to Facebook posts by officials in Alabama and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Meanwhile in the West, the remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel are moving across Southern California, raising the risk of flooding from southern Idaho to Mexico’s Baja California, the US National Hurricane Center said. More than 9,500 customers were without power across Utah, PowerOutage.com reported.

A core of heavy rain from Rachel is bringing the threat of flooding to the area west of Las Vegas and prompted a warning in Death Valley, said Dan Pydynowski, a meteorologist with commercial forecaster AccuWeather Inc.

For the U.S. to get squeezed by tropical systems on both coasts at the same time is “rare, but not unheard of,” Pydynowski said. “It certainly doesn’t happen every year and it’s not common per se, but it does happen.”

In 2021, Louisiana was hit by Hurricane Ida, while moisture from Hurricane Nora off Mexico led to flooding across Arizona, Pydynowski said. A similar situation occurred in 1992, when Hurricane Andrew hit Florida and Hurricane Lester from the Pacific tracked the US Southwest.

To the south, Hurricane Simon, packing winds of 150 mph, making it a Category 4 storm on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale, lashed the coasts of the Mexican states of Jalisco and Colima with some of its strongest winds, the U.S. hurricane center said. The storm may hit Jalisco later when it officially makes landfall.

Pydynowski said the storm may continue to move parallel to the coast and not make landfall until later in the week.

Heavy rain is expected across Jalisco, and waves of up to nearly 20 feet could lash the coast, according to Mexico’s weather service.

“Catastrophic winds and life-threatening storm surge impacts are likely along a portion of the west-central coast of Mexico,” Eric Blake, the U.S. center’s chief hurricane specialist, wrote in his outlook. “Heavy rainfall associated with Simon will affect parts of southwestern Mexico this weekend.”

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