Tornado warning issued for parts of L.A. as big storm moves in

Los Angeles Times ^ | Jan. 19, 2010 | Paloma Esquivel, Cathleen Decker,Ruben Vives, Andrew Blankstein,Tony Barboza

[Beaten Valve]

The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for the South Los Angeles, Long Beach and Whittier areas as a powerful new storm moves ashore.

The warning is expected to be in place for at least 45 minutes.

Radar shows heavy rain falling in Long Beach, with the storm moving in at 35 mph to the northeast. There were also reports of thunder and lightning across the region.

Forecasters said the storm was capable of producing a tornado, but there was no evidence at this time that any tornadoes have developed on land.

[Updated at 1:03 p.m.: The tornado warning was extended to Orange County. In Seal Beach, officials were urging people to get off the beach. In San Pedro, the Los Angeles Fire Department reported major street flooding in area near the harbor and ocean.

In East Long Beach, flood waters rose above some street and were filling the grass areas in front of some homes. There were reports of power outages, though exactly how widespread is not clear.

The Orange County Sheriff's Department is checking a report that a car driving on Pacific Coast Highway might have been damaged by the storm, but officials have not confirmed this.

Huntington Beach lifeguards said no waterspouts—or offshore tornadoes—have been spotted. The beaches were mostly empty while waves surged, lightning struck and wind reached gusts of 52 miles per hour, said Huntington Beach Marine Safety Lt. Mike Beuerlein.

Newport Beach was seeing wind gusts of over 72 miles per hour and has closed jetties due to high surf, but has seen no tornadoes or waterspouts, said Jennifer Schulz of the Newport Beach Fire Dept.]

]

[halo66]

Another report of an earlier possible tornado in Goleta (near Santa Barbara)

RADIO STATION KCOY IN SANTA BARBARA REPORTED A SHERIFFS DEPUTY SPOTTED A POSSIBLE TORNADO NEAR THE OCEAN MEADOW GOLF COURSE NEAR ISLE VISTA AROUND 1030 AM...ROOF DAMAGE (LOX)

[AFreeBird]

Wasn’t this made into a movie?

[antceecee]

Soggy hello to you La Dita...

[halo66]

New tornado warning...

BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN DIEGO CA
154 PM PST TUE JAN 19 2010

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SAN DIEGO HAS ISSUED A

* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
SOUTHEASTERN ORANGE COUNTY IN SOUTHWEST CALIFORNIA...
THIS INCLUDES THE CITIES OF...SAN CLEMENTE...MISSION VIEJO...LAGUNA
BEACH...
NORTHWESTERN SAN DIEGO COUNTY IN SOUTHWEST CALIFORNIA...
THIS INCLUDES THE CITIES OF...VISTA...OCEANSIDE...FALLBROOK...
ENCINITAS...CARLSBAD...

* UNTIL 230 PM PST

* AT 150 PM PST...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED
A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO BETWEEN
CARLSBAD AND FOUNTAIN VALLEY. THE STORMS WERE MOVING NORTHEAST AT
ABOUT 30 MPH.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

THE SAFEST PLACE TO BE DURING A TORNADO IS IN A BASEMENT. GET UNDER A
WORKBENCH OR OTHER PIECE OF STURDY FURNITURE. IF NO BASEMENT IS
AVAILABLE...SEEK SHELTER ON THE LOWEST FLOOR OF THE BUILDING IN AN
INTERIOR HALLWAY OR ROOM SUCH AS A CLOSET. USE BLANKETS OR PILLOWS TO

[GonzoGOP]

Now they are having tornadoes??

Quick call Discovery Channel and have them rush the Storm Chasers out there. If they think driving in an Oklahoma corn field is hard wait until they take on LA traffic. However having your own tank could be useful in some neighborhoods.

[Pylon]

We have/had a tornado warning down here in San Diego county. For the northern part of the county, Oceanside, Carlsbad, Encinitas, etc. I am down south by the border and have not heard of one down here but we have had some real heavy off and on rain and lots of wind.

[buffyt]

The likelihood of a hurricane strength storm striking Southern California is low. Since 1900, only four tropical cyclones have brought gale-force winds to the Southwestern United States.

They are an unnamed tropical storm that made landfall near San Pedro in 1939, the remnants of Hurricane Joanne in 1972, the remnants of Hurricane Kathleen in 1976, and Hurricane Nora in 1997 which entered California as a tropical storm.

Most likely there were tornadoes, they accompany hurricanes, causing a lot of the damage.

[nmh]

Watch them twist and tie this into the gloBULL warming farce. That's beginning to loose traction too.

[La Enchiladita]

Hello:) What’s the OC report?

[AFreeBird]

Man, another bad day for us Southern Californians. A tornado just flipped a car over in Seal Beach.

A whole car?

Call us when one rips a swath through your state taking out everything in its path.

Sorry, didn't meant to be snippy. Midwesterner here. We test our tornado sirens every Friday at 11AM.

[buffyt]

Los Angeles County Tornadoes
date event time dead inj F County
# Scale number(s)

JAN 26, 1918.. 001.. 1330 0 0 F2 037
APR 05, 1926... 002 0 0 F2 037
MAR 15, 1930... 001 1140 0 4 F2 037
MAR 02, 1934... 001 1340 0 0 F0 037
FEB 12, 1936... 001 1530 0 0 F0 037
NOV 11, 1944... 001 2100 0 0 F2 037
DEC 20, 1952 001 1200 0 0 F1 037
JAN 18, 1955 001 1101 0 0 F1 037
MAY 09, 1956 002 0830 0 1 F0 037
FEB 19, 1962 002 1600 0 0 F1 037
MAY 14, 1962 004 1200 0 0 F1 037
NOV 09, 1964 003 0700 0 0 F1 037
NOV 07, 1966 003 1300 0 0 F2 037
NOV 07, 1966 004 1300 0 10 F2 037
APR 18, 1967 001 1800 0 0 F0 037
MAY 08, 1977 003 1000 0 0 F1 037
JAN 04, 1978 001 1515 0 0 F1 037
FEB 09, 1978 003 2230 0 0 F1 037
JAN 31, 1979 002 1045 0 0 F1 037
JAN 28, 1980 002 1315 0 0 F0 037
MAR 29, 1982 005 2130 0 0 F1 037
NOV 09, 1982 008 0930 0 0 F1 037
NOV 09, 1982 009 1130 0 0 F2 037
NOV 09, 1982 010 1200 0 0 F2 037
NOV 09, 1982 011 1200 0 0 F0 037
MAR 01, 1983 002 0740 0 30 F2 037
MAR 01, 1983 003 0815 0 0 F0 037
SEP 30, 1983 007 0700 0 0 F0 037
SEP 30, 1983 008 2235 0 3 F1 037
MAY 30, 1984 002 0915 0 0 F0 037
JUN 05, 1987 003 1315 0 0 F0 037
JAN 16, 1990 002 2120 0 0 F0 037
MAR 19, 1991 004 0200 0 0 F0 037
MAR 20, 1992 002 1900 0 0 F1 037
JAN 17, 1993 004 2345 0 0 F0 037
FEB 07, 1994 001 1545 0 0 F0 037
JUN 16, 1995 006 1155 0 0 F0 037
JLY 21, 1997 009 1555 0 0 F0 037
JAN 09, 1998 001 1400 0 0 F1 037
APR 01, 1999 001 1400 0 0 F0 037
AUG 28, 2000 006 1345 0 0 F0 037

Lots more since 2000 and...

LOTS more tornadoes in California by county, through 2000...
California Tornadoes 1880-2000
http://www.tornadoproject.com/alltorns/catorn.htm
GO there to see the list formatted, it is losing its formatting here.

[dragnet2]

Man, another bad day for us Southern Californians. A tornado just flipped a car over in Seal Beach.

Get real....Some of you sound as idiotic as the news geeks hoping for the worse to draw attention...Some dummy in a roll-over does not affect my day...

Gezzz it's hasn't rained in 6 months to speak of....we need this rain....

Get a grip man...lol

[buffyt]

HA HA HA ALL 57 states? Man, let a conservative make a boo boo like that and we will never hear the end of it LOL

There was a mishap at a nuke plant near San Clemente today, too. I wish our son didn’t have to go back to school! He goes to CUI, Irvine. He is on the 100 year plan I think.

[combat_boots]

Only wish I knew stuff like that.

[Beaten Valve]

C’mon now, you know that stuff like this is Breaking News here in LA!

---

“Get real....Some of you sound as idiotic as the news geeks hoping for the worse to draw attention...Some dummy in a roll-over does not affect my day... “

[antceecee]

Currently we have clouds and a bit of blue sky. Rain has stopped for now. My office is enclosed patio area of my home, so I’m nervously watching the water level in the yard. So far so good.

[dragnet2]

A whole car?

Yes, the tornado landed on that one car in Seal Beach and sucked the driver up through the sun roof ....After that, the funnel cloud disappeared...It's likely looking for another unsuspecting victim in Huntington Beach.

[Viking2002]

That's no lie. Just last year here in Alabama - Saturday, February 28th, to be exact - it was 70 degrees at 8 a.m., and two tornadoes hit in Lee County. I was only about five miles from the F-2 twister in Salem and couldn't see it through the heavy rain, but I could tell some bad voodoo was going down just to my south - it was like a black curtain had dropped down out of the sky and covered the area. The next afternoon, a cold front pushed in, dropped the temperature forty degrees, and the wraparound moisture dumped over 5" of snow on us. I drove through Salem the next morning - there were roofs missing, buildings destroyed, hundreds of trees snapped off at mid-trunk like matchsticks or flattened like in the Tunguska fireball of 1908, and all of it covered in snow. It was an eight-mile long swath that looked like Hell had frozen over. We went through all four seasons in a 36 hour period. It was surreal. Now, after having made it through the coldest first half of January on record for these parts, we're back up in the 60's, and girding our loins for a possible one-two punch of severe weather tomorrow night and Thursday. Springtime weather is always more fun than a barrel of monkeys down here in Dixie, but I have a feeling that this coming March and April ought to be real bell ringers. LOL

[Beowulf9]

“I’m a native Californian. I don’t EVER recall the word “tornado” being uttered in the same sentence as “California”.”

I was just going to post I have never heard of tornados in California when I read your comment.

[Not A Snowbird]

Ah. I’m from Northern California... we never cared what was going on in So Cal... ;-)