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California storm spawns twister

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/stormcenter/2004-12-29-la-torndo_x.htm?csp=34

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The storm that's been dumping rain on California since Monday spawned a tornado in the Los Angeles area on Wednesday.

Gino McGowens asses the damage to his Inglewood, Calif., home after wind blew a tree onto it.
By Stefano Paltera, AP

The tornado struck the Los Angeles suburbs of Inglewood and Ladera Heights around 1:30 a.m., ripping the roof off a house, snapping trees and damaging cars, but causing no injuries. Dan Keaton, a National Weather Service meteorologist, confirmed that it was a twister after examining the damage.

Resident Derek Williams told KCAL-TV he awakened when the tornado blasted out his bedroom window. "I heard sort of a low rumbling noise, sort of like a freight train and shortly after that, I heard a ripping noise - obviously, that was my roof," Williams said. "Thank God everyone was OK in the house."

"I didn't expect a tornado out here in Los Angeles. I mean, that's back in the Midwest where I'm from," he said.

In its 4 p.m. PT Tuesday storm alert, the Los Angeles area National Weather Service office had said that storm could bring "intense rainfall events, small hail, local wind gusts over 50 mph, waterspout and funnel cloud formation as well as isolated small tornadoes."

More than 30 tornadoes have been recorded in Los Angeles County since 1918, but no deaths from them have been reported.

A waterspout is a tornado over water and a funnel cloud is a tornado that does not touch the ground.

In San Diego County, high winds — not a tornado — snapped off the top 200 feet of the KSON radio tower in National City and bits of the falling tower struck about 20 cars. The mishap took two local radio stations and a cable television station off the air, KURS director Larry Thompson told The San Diego Union-Tribune.

In Orange County, wind toppled a brick wall onto a carport roof in Costa Mesa, crushing more than a dozen vehicles.