A new study has concluded that former Hurricane Hilary was actually no longer a tropical storm but essentially had the same impact when its destructive remnants entered California last August.

It was the first tropical storm to strike California in 84 years, and it caused damage that will take a while for residents to clean up.

Crews worked to dig roads, buildings and care home residents out of the mud across a wide swath of Southwestern U.S. desert Monday, after a tropical storm to hit Southern California.

Scientists figure a natural El Nino, human-caused climate change, a stubborn heat dome over the nation’s midsection and other factors cooked up Hilary’s record-breaking slosh into California and Nevada.

Tropical Storm Hilary has drenched Southern California, swept people into swollen rivers, toppled trees onto homes and flooded roads.

Deadly floodwaters have inundated streets along the length of Mexico’s arid Baja California, where Tropical Storm Hilary came ashore Sunday.

Tropical Storm Hilary is swirling northward just off the coast of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.