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.
The heartland is tornado country. In 1979 a big sucker hit Wichita Falls, TX. The base was a mile wide.