I looked up the last time this happened, granted 1939 was a different era:

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/california-last-time-tropical-storm-18303748.php

“Severe gale force winds hit San Pedro on Sept. 24, measuring up to 65 mph and pummeling Los Angeles 5.42 inches of rain in 24 hours”
. . .
“Rain totals were highest on Mount Wilson, which received 11.88 inches of rain, and Mount Baldy, which saw 7.92 inches of rain, according to the Times”
. . .
"at least 45 people perished on land, with 48 dying at sea. Twenty-four of the deaths occurred on the fishing vessel Spray, which capsized. An Associated Press report on Sept. 26 warned that more two dozen boats “had not been heard from since the storm broke.”

Reports assessed property damage at more than $1 million (about $22 million in today’s dollars), with some homes crumbling into the ocean. In Long Beach, at least a dozen homes were destroyed along the coast."

This is the best summary I could come up with:

In a briefing Friday, UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain called the storm “a remarkable, rare, historic event for California” that could produce severe and even disastrous impacts for the state’s southeastern desert interior.

David Roth, a veteran precipitation forecaster with the Weather Service who wrote the discussion, likened Hilary to the “Western equivalent of a Harvey or Florence” — hurricanes that produced historically severe rainfall events in Texas and North Carolina — in a thread on Twitter.

An extremely rare Level 4 of 4 “high risk” notice for flash flooding is in place for the Southern California mountains and deserts for Sunday into Monday, including Death Valley.

“About as much moisture in the air as this part of the world has seen,” said Paul Iniguez, a meteorologist at the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

Sustained winds of greater than 39 miles per hour are likely across portions of the tropical storm warning area in far southwest California, according to the National Weather Service in San Diego.

“That will down power lines, that can down trees, that will move any loose objects that are not secure,” Alex Tardy, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in San Diego, said in a briefing on Friday.

The original article contains 1,396 words, the summary contains 216 words. Saved 85%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!