Three tornadoes confirmed in California in a single day
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California is known for having earthquakes, wildfires and the rare tsunami, but after Tuesday you may want to add tornadoes to the conversation.
According to the National Weather Service, three separate tornadoes were confirmed in the state on Tuesday afternoon, one ripping the metal roof off a barn and snapping tree trunks in half.
Given the conditions in the state Tuesday — moderate temperatures on the ground nearing 70 degrees, but frigid atmospheric temperatures recorded at minus-22 degrees — forecasters thought they could see a tornado form at some point, said Carlos Molina, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Hanford.
“If we’d seen one, we would’ve been in the ballpark, but to see three is a little more unusual,” Molina said.
With a wind speed of up to 80 mph, a brief tornado traveled for about one-third of a mile in Boyle Heights, a neighborhood on L.A.’s Eastside, just after 10 a.m.
The strongest of the three was around Clovis in Fresno County and formed at 5:16 p.m. with wind speeds up to 125 mph, he said. Experts were on the ground about 15 minutes later to confirm the reports and found trees ripped from their root systems and a barn with its roof freshly torn off. There were photos of trees broken in half at the trunk, Molina said.
A tornado’s intensity is determined in part by the damage it causes. The damage around Clovis elevated Tuesday’s tornado to an EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, Molina said.
Don Wright, 66, had just returned from a meeting and laid down to rest when he heard what sounded like a freight train running into the side of his Clovis home. He jumped up and looked outside to see trees flying through the air. Winds picked up his lightweight horse barn, known as a mare motel, and threw it about 100 yards. A power pole snapped in two “like a toothpick,” he said.
“All this sounds cliche — freight train, toothpick — but it was amazing, the power,” he said.
Residents along Glencannon Drive were expecting rain. But instead they got a tornado that downed trees and damaged several homes.
The storm toppled a tree onto the roof of his mother’s home, which is also on the property, he said. Luckily she was uninjured, as were Wright’s two horses. In fact, despite the destruction, not a single window was broken, he added.
The consultant and publisher, who runs a website focused on state water policy and agricultural irrigation, was still working to assess the damage Wednesday morning. His driveway was blocked by large trees, his swimming pool was full of branches and he had no running water.
Wright has lived in Oklahoma and Louisiana, where tornadoes are more common. He was surprised to experience such wild weather in California’s Central Valley, which typically averages just one or two tornadoes per year. “One of the firemen that came out said the good news is, this tornado season is probably over for the valley,” he quipped.
The two other tornadoes occurred earlier Tuesday. They were both classified as EF0, Molina said.
The first was in Madera County, in the Sierra foothills between the city of Madera and the town of Coarsegold about 2:19 p.m.
The region averages one to two tornadoes a year, but the twister that hit Montebello this week was the Los Angeles area’s strongest since 1983.
A resident of an unincorporated area near Kerman reported a funnel cloud touching down near North Biola Avenue and West Belmont Avenue around the same time, according to Tony Botti, a public information officer with the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office. No damage was reported, he wrote in an email.
Another tornado formed to the west in the Merced County city of Atwater about 5 p.m., Molina said.
Atwater farmer Jesus Duran, 28, heard loud banging and initially thought it was hailing. Then he looked up and saw strips of sheet metal and planks of wood circling hundreds of feet in the air, he said.
Duran went to his neighbors’ house to find their horse stables torn apart and their home damaged, he said. Video he took shows the yard littered with debris, including a corrugated metal roof that appeared to have slid off its structure. A crumpled piece of siding was slung over a power line.
No one was injured, Duran said.
“I have a nephew who lives in Kansas and he’s showed me videos of tornadoes, but I never expected to see one here in California,” he said.
Authorities in Kansas reported several people with minor injuries while three people were left with minor injuries in rural Franklin County, according to the sheriff’s office.
The Merced County Sheriff’s Office received reports of damage to the roof of a horse barn and a patio, but no injuries were recorded, according to Deputy Alexandra Garcia.
All three tornadoes were created by a mix of the warm air rising from the ground and very cold air in the atmosphere sinking at the same time. The rising heat and sinking cold created a rotation effect that encouraged tornadoes, Molina said.
In an average year, California sees about nine tornadoes, “so to have three in one day is ... unusual,” he said.
Forecasters are expecting another storm system to move through the area Saturday and Sunday, but it doesn’t look to be quite as strong, said Brian Ochs, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford.
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