About the Chubasco (this is long)
Cyclonic storms occur everywhere on earth. Their winds swirl around central eyes of low pressure, blanketing wide areas with clouds and rain. Where
climates are temperate, cyclonic storms are usually temperate, too. But in places where dying tradewinds meet the belts of calm and variable winds
called "The Doldrums," tropical cyclones may turn violent.
The enormous expanses of water in these ocean areas don't offer much surface resistance, and the encircling winds may reach speeds of 130 miles an
hour around eyes more than 50 miles wide. They may cover an area of 300 miles, with heavy rains extending beyond this on all sides. In the northern
hemisphere the storms revolve counter-clockwise, moving forward quite slowly at some 10 to 20 miles an hour, and after hitting Cabo San Lucas usually
veer toward the Pacific rather than land.
Like some familiar old foe, the storm has been given a specific name wherever it makes frequent visits. It's a cyclon in the Indian Ocean, a
willy-willy in Australia, a baguio in the Philippines, a tai fung in China, and (based on the Chinese word) a typhoon on the far side of the Pacific.
It's a huracan (borrowed from the Taino Indians) in the Caribbean, and a hurricane to English speakers (except for those of the U.S. Weather Bureau,
who prefer tropical cyclonic storm).
In Mexico the disturbance is called a huracan or a cyclon. Both words are used on the peninsula, but in its south the familiar name is "chubasco." ln
Spain, rainstorms in general are called chubascos, but in the Sur this term is used more specifically (perhaps because they bring the only formidable
rains that ever fall).
Chubascos may well be one of the peninsula's earliest late-summer visitors--there is evidence that they have been recurring ever since the world's
wind systems assumed their present form, some 25,000 years ago. The storms may sweep Baja California any time betwen July and October--very rarely,
November--but are most likely to show up in September. As far north as Laguna Seca Chapala, September is the wettest month in long-term weather
records.
Notable chubascos are said to occur every seven years, although weather records show no such cycle. Historically, catastrophic hurricanes seem to
follow a pattern similar to that of the legendary "hundred-year flood."
In 1717 a three-day tempest burst the dam at Mission San Javier, destroying buildings and washing away most of the soil Indians had carried in to make
level cropland. Padre Juan de Ugarte huddled in the shelter of a big rock throughout 24 hours of unceasing rain. At Loreto a small boy was swept into
the Gulf, never to be seen again alive or dead, and four pearl-divers were drowned.
In 1817 forty-five people drowned when a chubasco hit Cabo San Lucas, and in 1918 much of the equipment at the U. S. Naval Station at Pichilingue was
destroyed. As a result of the development that has taken place in recent years, storms have wreaked more havoc than in times when there weren't many
people.
In the days before supermarkets stocked with meat from Sonora arrived in La Paz, home-grown beef was sold at a few butcher-shops--and the chubasco was
considered an ill wind that blew some good. A radio announcer concluded a weather broadcast in 1964 with a colorful account of the green grass that
would spring up, and the golden butter, the rich milk, the thick cream, and snow-white cheese that would follow in the wake of the storm's rain.
In days before TV weather-casts, the storms were usually viewed as more of a nuisance than a potential disaster. A person who was stirring up an
argument was often accused of "making a chubasco."
\"Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest never happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.\" -
Mark Twain
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