High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The 1939 California tropical storm, also called the 1939 Long Beach Tropical Storm, El Cordonazo, The Lash of St. Francis was a tropical cyclone that hit Southern California in September, 1939. Formerly a hurricane, it was the only tropical storm to make landfall in California in the twentieth century. The only other known tropical cyclone to directly affect California is the 1858 San Diego Hurricane, and only three other eastern Pacific tropical cyclones have caused gale-force winds in the continental United States. The tropical storm caused heavy flooding, leaving many dead, mostly at sea.