page_title: Hurricane Nora (1997)
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Hurricane Nora (1997) / Impact / United States
caption_attribution_description: English: Storm total rainfall map of Hurricane Nora during September 1997.
context_page_description: Hurricane Nora was only the third tropical cyclone on record to reach Arizona as a tropical storm, and one of the rare cyclones to make landfall in Baja California. Nora was the fourteenth named tropical cyclone and seventh hurricane of the 1997 Pacific hurricane season. The September storm formed off the Pacific coast of Mexico, and aided by waters warmed by the 1997–98 El Niño event, eventually peaked at Category 4 intensity on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale.
  Nora took an unusual path, making landfall twice as a hurricane in the Baja California Peninsula. Weakening quickly after landfall, its remnants lashed the Southwestern United States with tropical-storm-force winds, torrential rain and flooding. The storm was blamed for two direct casualties in Mexico, as well as substantial beach erosion on the Mexican coast, flash flooding in Baja California, and record precipitation in Arizona. It persisted far inland and eventually dissipated near the Arizona–Nevada border.
context_section_description: In the United States, there were no direct deaths blamed on the hurricane. However, the California Highway Patrol attributed three or four traffic fatalities in southern California to the weather.
  Damage totals in the United States are not fully known, although media summaries of Nora included a loss to agriculture preliminarily estimated at several hundred million dollars, and at least one study places the figure at $150–200 million (1997 USD). It is estimated that $30–40 million (1997 USD) in damage to lemon trees occurred. Although Nora was significantly weakened, near hurricane-force winds were observed at the Dixie National Forest in southwestern Utah, where strong gusts sheared off the tops of large trees.
  The Yuma radar indicated a small area of 10 inches (250 mm) rainfall totals along the northern Gulf of California coast of Baja California. In the United States, the largest total rainfall was recorded at the Harquahala Mountains in Arizona, where 11.97 inches (304 mm) of rainfall were recorded as a result of Nora, causing flash floods in western Arizona.
  Near Phoenix, rainfall from the storm caused the Narrows Dam, a small earthen dam, to fail. In other locations in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah, more than 3 inches (76 mm) fell in a few localized areas, precipitation in some places was comparable to the entire local yearly average rainfall. Flooding was also reported in Somerton, San Diego, El Centro, Palm Springs and Indio, while 12,000 people lost power in Yuma.
caption: Nora Rainfall for Mexico and the United States