The Pineapple Express is a non-technical term for a meteorological phenomenon characterized by a strong and persistent flow of moisture and associated with heavy rain and snow from the waters near the Hawaiian Islands and extending to locations along the Pacific coast of North America, mainly California. Such weather patterns set up every few years during the winter, that is actually the rainy season on the west coast of the US. In February of 1980 and extreme version of this pattern set up and lasted for almost a week reaching it’s zenith on February 19. Rain had been falling in Los Angeles in the first in a series of storms pushed along by the Pineapple Express first began Feb. 13th. Downtown L.A. has recorded more than 12" of rain in that time period. In the mountains south of Monterey, 22.24” of rain totaled by the 19th. Unofficially, 19 deaths were attributed to the storms of the previous week in Southern California alone, with over $100 million in damage, more than $325 million in today’s dollars. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.