Hurricane Hilary will impact Fresno, forecasters say. Here is how much rain will fall

Hurricane Hilary will impact the Fresno region Monday dumping up to a half-inch of a rain, according to the National Weather Service in Hanford.

Hurricane Hilary will downgrade to a tropical storm as it moves into cold water near Baja California before making landfall in Southern California over the weekend.

Meteorologist Carlos Molina said there will be light rain before midnight Sunday, but the bulk of the precipitation will start in the mountains before moving down to the Valley floor after midnight and raining throughout Monday.

Molina said it bears resemblance of Hurricane Norman in 1978. The storm brought 1.01 inch of rain to Fresno from Sept. 4-7 that year.

He said Bakersfield is expected to receive up to an inch of rain.

Thunderstorms are also possible Tuesday, Molina said.

“It’s going to bring a lot of moisture with it,” he said.

Molina added that it’s rare that a hurricane travels north and impacts Southern California.

“This is just one of those rare events where the wind flows are actually kind of making it steer to the north instead of to the west,” Molina said.

“After they form, they move across the ocean westward towards Hawaii and then over towards the other side of the Pacific, like the Philippines, Japan and Korea.

“August is supposed to be dry. So seeing a half an inch of rain in August or even an inch in Bakersfield in August is extremely unusual for something to be happening in Central California right now.”