EP95 Is a Disturbance. It Is Not a Hurricane Aimed at Southern California.
I’ve been watching Southern California weather and water long enough to know this movie. A tropical disturbance spins up off Mexico, a couple of early computer runs throw a noodle toward our coast, and by the next news cycle it sounds like we need plywood and canned chili.
Safety always comes first. If the National Weather Service or the National Hurricane Center tells you to prepare, you prepare. That’s not up for debate.
What is up for debate is whether a hurricane is forming near Southern California and coming ashore here next weekend. Right now, the official answer is no.
KTLA and Kaj Goldberg were not talking about a storm already over Los Angeles. They were talking about a disturbance the National Hurricane Center calls EP95. That system is real. The way it got packaged is the problem.
Goldberg said that if this thing comes together, it “could make its way right into Southern California about one week from today.” The tease went further: a hurricane forming near Southern California later this week, then weakening and reaching landfall here as a tropical storm with heavy rain and flooding.
That is a stack of ifs sold as a forecast.
EP95 is not a tropical storm. It is not a hurricane. It does not have an eye. And it is not off San Diego.
The National Hurricane Center’s own words: a broad, disorganized area of low pressure well offshore of southwestern Mexico. Latest fixes put it around 12°N, 106°W — south-southeast of Cabo San Lucas, on the order of 700–800 miles from the cape. Cabo may see tropical showers from monsoon moisture and this disturbance. That is not the same thing as a hurricane sitting on Los Cabos or walking up the 405.
What NWS meteorologist Bryan Lewis told KTLA is the part that is actually official. The Hurricane Center gives this disturbance an 80% chance of becoming a tropical depression — winds under 39 mph — in the next 48 hours, and a 90% chance in the next seven days. That is the forecast that exists. A depression is a spin-up. It is not a hurricane, and it is not a Southern California landfall.
Lewis also said the quiet part out loud: once a depression forms, then the Hurricane Center will write a real discussion with probabilities of tropical-storm or hurricane strength. They have not done that yet because there is nothing to track as a named storm.
The leap on television is here:
1. A disturbance exists.
2. It will probably become a depression.
3. Therefore it becomes a hurricane by Friday or Saturday.
4. Therefore it aims at Baja.
5. Therefore it weakens and comes ashore in Southern California as a tropical storm.
Steps 3 through 5 are model shopping a week out, not an official forecast. Eastern Pacific systems usually get steered west or west-northwest into open ocean. A few early spaghetti noodles toward California always show up. TV grabs those noodles. Then the system, if it even organizes, usually turns out to sea.
“A hurricane could form near Southern California later this week” is the giveaway. If this disturbance organizes, it would do it over warm tropical water off southwestern Mexico — not near Los Angeles. We are not in the tropics.
Even in this warm-water summer, SoCal beach water is in the mid-70s. Hurricanes want about 80°F and a deep warm layer. That is why these systems almost always come apart if they try to get this far north.
Lewis is right about the history, and it cuts against the headline. The last tropical storm to make landfall in California was 1939. Hilary in 2023 brought a real punch of rain — and it was not a tropical storm by the time it reached us.
Remnant moisture and a sloppy south swell are the honest Southern California conversation. A named hurricane walking into Seal Beach is not.
Watch EP95. If the Hurricane Center names it, the next name on the list is Marie. Then read that advisory — track, wind, watches — not Sunday night’s tease.
Do not board up. Do not strip the canned-food aisle. If you fish or have family in Baja, respect the swell and the rip. Distant tropics can still make the shorebreak ugly. A Channel 5 hurricane landfall in Southern California this week is not the official forecast.
Safety first. Facts over fear.
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End-of-summer Surf Fishing Festival — Saturday, Sept 12, 2026, 9am–12pm at Anderson St & PCH, Sunset Beach. Noon raffle. Park across PCH and stop by Big Fish Bait & Tackle in Seal Beach.
— Phil Friedman
Friedman Adventures
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