Does California get tornadoes very often? I’m in Az but not familiar with California’s weather. I did not know they get tornadoes.
Tornadoes can and have occurred in every U.S. state. The contiguous states west of the Rockies get them infrequently and at lower strength. AK rarely gets them. HI gets about one per year, and nothing higher than EF-2. East of the Rockies, all bets are off.
They are very rare, but we had one come through out neighborhood on the San Francisco Peninsula in 1998. The kids were outside playing in the backyard after school and our oldest (then 12) screamed “Mom, it’s a tornado!” Mom thought, “Yeah, sure,” but it really was. It demolished a few trees, ripped off some roofing in the neighborhood, flattened the tennis court fences at the high school, and ruined the batting cages. It probably wasn’t even an F1.
I spent seven years in Missouri and we knew what real tornadoes were there.
More often than you think. Here's a link to a map of tornadoes since 1950
https://data.thecalifornian.com/tornado-archive/
We've had a few near Yuma too and that's close enough to California for the tally. Also I have seen water spouts off of San Diego a few times.