As undoubtedly almost all of you know, a hurricane
has formed off western Mexico named KAY that is forecast to come north
just barely off the west coast of Baja. Once it gets to central Baja it
should start to weaken due to cooler ocean temps and encountering drier
air, so it should be "only" a weakening tropical storm once it gets
beyond there--as well as start to curve offshore to the west. It may
still be a weak tropical storm when it gets to its forecast northernmost
latitude, well off about Ensenada around late Friday or early Saturday.
The principal effects in San Diego County are forecast to be strong
EAST winds on Friday PM into Saturday AM, chance for substantial rain in
the mountains (especially east slope), and more spotty rain nearer to
the coast from late Friday through Saturday.

My gut--and my gut can be incorrect--is that the
center of the weakening storm will not get close enough to us, and the
dominant wind direction unfortunately will be EASTERLY, to bring us a
plethora of vagrant pelagic species. The one species that could well
turn up is MAGNIFICENT FRIGATEBIRD, and they could be seen not only
along the coast, but perhaps also over any larger inland body of water,
including in the mountains, and even over at Borrego Springs and other western desert sites. Best time
to look will probably be Friday PM and much of Saturday. Frigatebirds
are the species often displaced the farthest out from the center of a tropical
storm--of any of the hoped-for seabirds. Two frigatebirds turned up in
L.A. County this past weekend right after the extremely weak remnants of
"Javier" moved by early on Saturday. In eastern North America, after
frigatebird, the species displaced the farthest out from a tropical
storm is often Sooty [and Bridled] Tern. Thus, a frigatebird is perhaps a possibility in a large part of southern California.

But in addition to a possible frigatebird or
pie-in-the-sky something even better, the strong east winds and some
amount of rain could drop numbers of inland over-flying shorebirds and
other over-flying waterbirds (including inland rarities such as jaegers
and Sabine's Gulls and terns) on any larger inland body of water. AND
perhaps the strong east flow MIGHT result in a grounding of landbird
migrants along the coast.

So, lots of choices to be made! And perhaps only a
couple folks will make the right choice! Try the coast late Fri and all
of Sat for frigatebirds Try inland for frigatebirds and grounded
waterbirds and shorebirds of note right after the worst of the weather
Try good landbird sites along the immediate coast Saturday [or even
Sunday] morning

Many a good waterbird does NOT linger long, at all,
after a storm passes, so if you are lucky enough to find something good,
please post the word IMMEDIATELY to the local listserve and possible WhatsApp group.
Do NOT wait several hours to eBird it.

--Paul Lehman, San Diego