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Climate and Environment

As Hurricane Hilary Approached, The Memes Landed Hard. Then Came The #Hurriquake

A satellite image of earth with swirling clouds moving towards a map of California.
Forecast for rain fall over the weekend- the NWS warns of Hurricane Hilary touching down on SoCal.
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Courtesy NWS San Diego office.
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Even as we were bracing for Hurricane Hilary to bear down on Southern California, all indications were that it would weaken to a tropical storm before landing. And it did.

If you're looking for a catch-all compendium of the things you needed to know to get ready for Hilary, go here.

If a deep-dive look at just how rare this weather event is for Southern California strikes your fancy, we got that here.

For latest news about the storm Monday, we have you covered here.

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Oh, and in the middle of all of this we had an earthquake, seriously, generating even more memes (#hurriquake quickly beat our #earthcane, in case you wondered).

Now if you want memes, absurdity, a little bit of LOLs — stay put, because this is the post where we scour the internet so you don't have to.

The memes

A tropical storm landing in SoCal is a nearly once-in-a-century event. It's serious business, with areas across Southern California placed under a tropical storm watch.

It's new to so many of us here. But not to our friends in Florida, which brings us to the "look, people" memes:

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Many of us took to social media to give voice to our anxieties and perseverance in the face of this rare August meteorological event. Behold the "me, during..." memes:

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Did we already say that the last time a tropical storm hit California was in 1939? Below are the "dang, I've been prepping for the wrong natural disasters" memes:

And of course, a perennial in the genre, the "making fun of Angelenos complaining about the weather" meme:

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Then, right as the storm was gaining intensity Sunday afternoon, an earthquake struck Ventura County near Ojai, spawning this:

#Hurriquake

Stay safe, everyone.

Updated August 21, 2023 at 6:22 AM PDT
This story was updated to reflect the storms arrival and current conditions.

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