The 1997 weather headline Tucson still chuckles about

In late September that year, a hurricane named Nora was speeding north from Baja, Mexico, aided by waters warmed by an El Niño weather pattern.

For days, Tucsonans stacked sandbags around their homes, stocked up on emergency supplies and watched The Weather Channel incessantly (our TVs were old-school, our phones were landlines and the web was a slow dial-up for people with AOL). 

Then we hunkered down, waiting for heavy rainfall and potential flooding to rival the area's 1983 and '93 floods.

But the hurricane whiffed on Tucson — leading to one of the most remembered and talked about banner news headlines in modern Arizona Daily Star history:

"Nora unleashes dozens of raindrops"

Newsroom lore has it that copy editor supreme Ron Solomon, since retired, was the wit behind that memorable line, which ran across the top of Page One on Sept. 25, 1997.

Also on the front page that day: A Top 10 list (Letterman show style; it was the '90s, after all). Titled "We got sandbagged," it joked about what to do with surplus sandbags. Sample suggestion: "They make nifty filters for CAP water" (Tucson had just gone through a messy rollout of first beginning to serve Colorado River water for drinking — that's a whole 'nother story). 

A secondary headline on the page did get serious, though: "False alarm called good preparation for winter's El Niño"

Once again this year, an El Niño winter is ahead of us, and forecasters say this one could break records.

And in our immediate future, Hurricane Polo is moving north toward southern Baja. 

In Tucson, "Although we will see deep tropical moisture, it is important to note that the remnants of Polo are NOT expected to impact us directly," the National Weather Service reported Friday, Sept. 25.

Widespread showers and thunderstorms are expected across Southeast Arizona Monday afternoon through Tuesday night, Sept. 28-29.