Hurricane Hilary causes cancellations of flights & sporting events

Hurricane Hilary is scrambling flights, sporting events and other schedules as it makes its way toward land.

The National Weather Service has a Tropical Storm Watch in place for Southern California ahead of the now Category 3 storm, from the southern border to just north of Los Angeles, the first ever for the Golden State.

Major airlines including United, American, Southwest and JetBlue all have warnings posted on their websites that the storm could impact up to nine airports in California, including Los Angeles and San Diego, along with Las Vegas, as Nevada is in line to get soaking rain from the story.

At least 198 flights into San Diego International scheduled for Sunday and 52 scheduled for Monday were already canceled as of Saturday afternoon, according to tracking website FlightAware.com.

The numbers were smaller for Los Angeles International – 31 canceled for Sunday and five for Monday, while Hollywood Burbank had 82 Sunday flights and 32 Monday flights already shut down. At John Wayne Airport in Orange County, 69 Sunday flights and 23 Monday flights were cancelled.

All of the airlines are waiving fees to allow customers to change flights to avoid the storm. Passengers should contact their airline or go on the carrier’s website, to make necessary changes. Third-party services that sell tickets cannot help with changes.

Sporting events also have been either rescheduled or postponed due to the inclement weather.

Three Major League Baseball games scheduled for Sunday — Arizona at San Diego, Tampa Bay at the Los Angeles Angels and Miami at the Los Angeles Dodgers — were switched to split doubleheaders on Saturday to get the games in before the storm strikes.

Major League Soccer postponed its two Sunday matches. LA Galaxy was slated to host Real Salt Lake at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson and LAFC was scheduled to play the Colorado Rapids at BMO Stadium in downtown Los Angeles.

Death Valley National Park closed its campgrounds from noon Saturday through Tuesday due to the risk of flash floods in the area through Aug. 25.

Theme parks are not closed yet, but are keeping a close eye on the storm.

SeaWorld San Diego, on Mission Bay on the Pacific coast, said it will close at 5 p.m. Sunday, shortly before the storm is expected to reach the Mexico-California border, but for now plans to be open on Monday.

Sesame Place San Diego will be closed on Sunday.

Six Flags Magic Mountain, a 209-acre amusement park in Valencia, California, 35 miles northwest of downtown L.A., told Deadline they were planning to stay open, but were monitoring the situation.

So far, Disneyland in Anaheim and Universal Studios Hollywood planned to remain open, CNN reported.