#232 Why Angels games are not cancelled due to rain

The home of the Los Angeles Angels, where Shohei Ohtani plays, is Anaheim, California. It is extremely rare for an Angels home game to be cancelled due to rain.

Most recently, due to the impact of a hurricane, the game scheduled for August 21st was moved forward and held on the 20th.
However, it is extremely unusual for a hurricane to make landfall on the U.S. West Coast; it is said that if one were to do so, it would be the first time in 80 years.

This is to be expected, as the majority of hurricanes that make landfall in the United States hit the East Coast or the Gulf of Mexico. This is because typhoons that form in the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico move northwest due to the influence of trade winds.

On the other hand, the Pacific Ocean along the West Coast has the cold California Current flowing southward, making it difficult for typhoons to form, and even if they do form in the south, they tend to weaken easily. Therefore, it is rare for California to suffer damage from hurricanes.

Furthermore, because California belongs to a Mediterranean or steppe climate, there is little rain throughout the year. Anaheim has a Mediterranean climate. In particular, there is little rain in the summer, and there are many sunny days. Since rain mainly falls during the off-season from November to February, there is almost never enough rain during the season to cause a game to be cancelled. When an Angels home game was cancelled due to rain in 2015, it was described as the first time in 20 years and only the third time in history.

Originally, Major League Baseball has a culture of forcing games to proceed even if it rains, or playing them even after delays of several hours or more. While there are cultural differences, it is fair to say that the climate of the West Coast is one of the reasons we are able to watch Shohei Ohtani's success every day.

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