Radar From California Tornado/Waterspout
UPDATE: The widely circulated Huntington Beach California tornado / waterspout photos that I suggested below could be a hoax, in fact were hoaxes.
UPDATE:Check out satellite shots on the CIMSS blog. I will get back to broadcasting the "greatest hits" (waves/winds/rain/snow) of this week of California storms this evening. Michael on our Facebook page points out a couple of interesting factoids via the NWS: 1. Some locations and even the entire state could set low pressure records this week, and 2.) A rare storm surge is being forecast for the coast (in addition to 20-foot waves onshore!).
What was probably a bona fide waterspout (which came onshore as a tornado) hit between Long Beach and Huntington Beach Tuesday afternoon. Some videos and photos of the flooding and damage are available on the LA Times site. ABC7 claims to have photos of the actual tornado in a video, and there are pics via Twitter (1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5) but as you'll notice on the LA Times site, some of those may be hoaxes. I'm surprised there weren't more pictures, but the tornado may have been rain-wrapped. Here's a radar shot; hover over the image to see the annotation showing the possible "hook echo" and the mesocylone's rotational signature. Again, this was a very impressive-looking thunderstorm by California standards. Tornadoes are rare in California but there were 73 twisters in Los Angeles & Orange Counties between 1950 and 2009; nothing stronger than an F1 since 1983.
*Requires Quicktime & "Save Target As" for some browsers.
Yesterday was the second day of tornado/funnel cloud/waterspout reports in California (today is the third if you count the one at 02:00 Z time). Here's a map of the reports (the thunderstorm icons are actually funnel clouds) in the last two days:
And here's a zoom of the area (the tornado icon is the location of two tornado reports and the 93 mph wind gust, shown below):
I'm hoping the National Weather Service in San Diego is going to do a storm survey to see if the damage was tornadic or not (there's always the possibility that the thunderstorm winds caused it). Thus far they have not issued a report though they have hinted that they believe it was a twister.
For additional analysis and information on upcoming storms in California, read Ken Clark's Blog or the news stories at AccuWeather.com
Here's a complete list of the reports (times are in Z):
01/18/2010 23:26 Z FUNNEL CLOUD 5 SW FRESNO (FRESNO CA): TRAINED SPOTTER REPORTED A FUNNEL CLOUD JUST TO THE WEST OF FRESNO.
01/19/2010 18:30 Z TORNADO GOLETA (SANTA BARBARA CA): 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 REPORTED
01/19/2010 20:57 Z TORNADO - HUNTINGTON BEACH (ORANGE CA): TORNADO SPOTTED ON PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY JUST SOUTH OF ANDERSON STREET. THE FUNNEL CROSSED THE HIGHWAY AND HEADED NE. A BLACK LIMO WAS LIFTED UP AND AN SUV WAS FLIPPED AND THROWN INTO A TREE. DOWNED TREES AND ROOF DAMAGE WERE ALSO SEEN IN THE AREA.
01/19/2010 21:30 Z WATER SPOUT 10 S SAN PEDRO (PZZ655 CA) COAST GUARD
01/19/2010 20:30 Z WATER SPOUT 4 SW HUNTINGTON BEACH (PZZ655 CA): A WATERSPOUT WAS SIGHTED OFF THE COAST BY THE WEATHER OBSERVER AT JOHN WAYNE AIRPORT. TIME AND LOCATION IS ESTIMATED.
01/19/2010 21:45 Z TORNADO - HUNTINGTON BEACH (ORANGE CA): EMERGENCY MNGR: PROBABLE TORNADO IN HUNTINGTON BEACH. BOATS UPLIFTED AND DAMAGED IN THE HB HARBOR. DAMAGE TO BUILDING IN AREAS. CAR FLIPPED 16400 PCH.
01/20/2010 02:00 Z FUNNEL CLOUD 6 W HANFORD (KINGS CA): PUBLIC
There were also these two wind gust reports of note. Neither NOAA coastal station in the area was transmitting wind gusts at the time, and none of the MESOWEST stations in the area showed anything interesting.
01/19/2010 20:30 Z TSTM WND GST 93 MPH NEWPORT BEACH (PZZ655) CA 93 MPH GUST 1230 PM MEASURED BY LIFEGUARDS AT NEWPORT BEACH PIER. ALSO MEASURED GUSTS TO 72 AND 73 MPH.
01/19/2010 20:45 Z TSTM WND GST 92 MPH HUNTINGTON BEACH (ORANGE CA): A 92 MPH WIND GUST WAS MEASURED BY LIFEGUARDS AT THE HUNTINGTON BEACH PIER. TIME OF WIND GUST ESTIMATED.
