ST. GEORGE — It’s possible that in the next few days, St. George residents may see rainfall for the record books. And it’s all thanks to Hurricane Hilary.
Since January, the St. George area has had 5.8 inches of rain, according to the National Weather Service. The latest forecast for Hilary as of 8 a.m., Friday has the St. George area receiving 2 to 4 inches of rain between late Sunday and Monday afternoon.
If that holds, it would challenge the record for most rain that has fallen on St. George in 24 hours. The current record, according to the Weather Service is 2.4 inches of rain on Aug. 31, 1909.
While Southern Utah will be on the periphery of what will be much greater effects of rainfall and wind in Southern California and Las Vegas, Christine Kruse with the Salt Lake City office of the National Weather Service said it could still be one for the record books.
“We’re going to see heavy, heavy rainfall. It is something, especially because we don’t get a lot of tropical cyclones,” Cruse said. “This is really not a good weekend to go out to slot canyons and … not a weekend I would be hiking areas prone to flooding.”
Newspaper accounts of the 1909 record rain, with headlines like “River is Raging” and “Virgin is Wild,” dot the front page of the Sept. 2, 1909, Washington County News.
“Such a flood as they had never before seen met their gaze,” one story reads. “Doors, windows lumber, fence posts, logs and various other debris were being earned along by the raging waters.”
Accounts include “dams and many acres of bottom lands” washed away in St. George and Santa Clara calling it the “greatest flood in the history of the county.”
As for 2023, Jason Bradley, emergency operations manager for Washington County, told St. George News people locally should be ready.
“If people feel they’re vulnerable to flooding, they need to take steps,” Bradley said. “If people encounter standing water, they shouldn’t drive through it. Don’t be afraid to get out and leave an area. You don’t need to wait for a bulletin or instructions to leave.”
Bradley said he will be consulting further with the National Weather Service later Friday.
As of Friday morning, Hilary was a Category 4 with 145 mph winds with the eye of the storm about 381 miles southwest of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. At this point, the eye is expected to make landfall near Ensenada as a Category 1 hurricane (74 to 95 mph) Sunday at 6 p.m.
At 10 a.m., Friday, the National Hurricane Center issued its first-ever Tropical Storm Watch for Southern California.
As of now, St. George isn’t expected to see much in the way of the wind effects of the cyclone. However, Cruse said there is some uncertainty as of Friday morning as Hilary is going through an eye wall replacement cycle and a revised forecast track is likely by Friday afternoon.
“The track could change,” Cruse said. “There’s an outside chance the wind track could hit Southern Utah but I don’t see that happening.”
As bad as the picture is for Southern Utah, it’s even more wet past the Virgin River Gorge.
“As you go toward Mesquite and Las Vegas, you’re looking at extremely heavy rainfall. Well over 4 inches,” Cruse said. “My advice is if people have travel plans on the I-15 this weekend … really check the current conditions. There’s going to be significant rain on that corridor. Check if there are any closures.”
Back in St. George, Cruse said for the most part if the current forecast holds, local residents won’t see anything too much different than they do during a heavy monsoon, including the heavy rains seen in the last 24 hours that included flooding in Cedar City.
Cedar City might not be seeing as much rain as St. George, but showers will still be heavier than normal.
But there will be something different about the rain.
“There will be some difference in the size of raindrops so if to a casual observer it might look like what they would see if they traveled to a tropical climate,” said Cruse, who added that the heavy monsoonal rain Thursday into Friday is an effect of moisture preceding Hilary.
Bradley said the high levels along the Virgin and Santa Clara rivers back in March from icepack runoff might have provided a good preview for local residents of what they should expect in the coming days along the rivers. Measures taken since a destructive 2005 flood proved to work keeping waters from causing much damage.
“Fortunately, there’s a lot of mitigation in (the) last few years that have left us OK,” Bradley said. “It’s something to be aware of and we’re going to keep watching it.”
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2023, all rights reserved.