Hurricanes never seem to hit the west coast of the US, why is that?
In: Earth Science
As I understand it, the conditions required to cause hurricanes to strike the US west coast are infrequent as the atmospheric and oceanic conditions on the west coast are not as conducive to the formation of hurricanes durable enough to survive the trip north from the coast of central Mexico. By and large, they head out into the north central Pacific and die from the cold.
That said, the Pacific Northwest is, roughly once a decade or so, struck by extratropical cyclones that began life as typhoons originating in the eastern Pacific.
The most famous of which, the Columbus Day storm, begun near the Marshall Islands as Typhoon Freda. It swept up the West Coast, where the significant atmospheric discrepancy caused extreme wind damage.
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