Rare tornado with 110 mph-wind trashes roofs in Southern California, injures 1; 11 buildings are red-tagged

It wasn’t something you see every day, and hopefully it stays that way.

A tornado touched down in Montebello on Wednesday, March 22, heavily damaging nearly a dozen buildings and an unknown number of vehicles, leaving one person with minor injuries and leaving onlookers awe-stricken as they marveled in its force.

The National Weather Service estimated the tornado’s peak wind speed was 110 mph.

With EF0 and EF1 tornadoes categorized as weak, and EF5 as violent with greater than 200 mph winds, Wednesday’s tornado was classified as an EF1.

#MontebelloTornado Damage report has been released. EF1 tornado with 0.42-mile damage path 50 yards wide. #LAweather #CAwx https://t.co/tM72O9rkuA

— NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLosAngeles) March 23, 2023

That made it the strongest tornado to hit the Los Angeles metropolitan area since March 1983, the weather service said.

The funnel may not have brought the awesome power of its Midwestern kin, but in L.A. County, where such events are rare, it was a spectacle that did a fair amount of damage while sparking some nervous moments amid the region’s deluge.

The National Weather Service confirmed that the tornado hit around 11:20 a.m. The storm was focused generally in the area of Washington Boulevard and Vail Avenue, in a largely industrial district.

It left no doubt of its force as onlookers in the area watched the swirling wind funnel rip panels off industrial roofs, spiraling them up into a column of air that looked from a distance more like spinning bits of confetti. Other video showed a funnel-like cloud forming above the area as rooftops are ripped away.

Other video from the aftermath showed multiple vehicles in the parking lot of an affected building with heavy damage, including shattered windows and body damage from flying debris. Some vehicles appeared to have rear bumpers ripped away.

Montebello resident Omar Lopez came outside for a smoke break and saw the tornado forming.

“All you see is just the funnel forming and all of a sudden everything starts flying everywhere,” Lopez said.

He said after a minute, the tornado dissipated, sending roof-top parts, gas station signs, trash and tree limbs toward the mountains.

“I think we need to petition the governor to lower out rents if we’re going to have this Nebraska weather,” he joked.

Jeffrey J. Ruiz was working near Washington and Maple Avenue when he heard a noise at the window and looked outside to see black debris rising.

In the aftermath, he discussed what he saw with neighbors in disbelief as they waited for power to be restored.

“It was insane, I didn’t believe what I was looking at,” Ruiz said. “We were all in shock.”

Michael Turner could hear the winds get stronger from inside his office at the 33,000-square-foot (3,065-square-meter) warehouse he owns just south of downtown Montebello. When the lights started flickering, he went outside to find his employees gazing up at the ominous sky. He brought everyone inside.

“It got very loud. Things were flying all over the place,” Turner said. “The whole factory became a big dustbowl for a minute. Then when the dust settled, the place was just a mess.”

Nobody was hurt, but the gas line was severed, fire sprinklers broke, all the skylights shattered and a 5,000-square-foot (465-square-meter) section of roof was “just gone,” Turner said. He said his polyester fiber business, Turner Fiberfill, could be closed for months.

“I’ve been in California since 1965. Never seen anything like this,” Turner said. “Earthquakes — we’re used to that.”

Suzanne, a receptionist at Inland Kenworth, a truck dealership on Washington and Vail (across the street from affected buildings), said when the tornado hit, she and her coworkers could hear the noise from across the street.

She and the others went outside to watch as the winds tore into the buildings.

“We had the lights go out and everything here in our facility and everybody went outside,” said Suzanne, who declined to give her last name.

She recalled that the tornado did not touch down, but rather dissipated after causing the wreckage. Despite the harrowing event, business only stalled until the lights turned back on around 2 p.m. Afterward, it continued as usual through the day.

She added that they would close an hour earlier.

Officials said the tornado developed fairly quickly as a strong storm cell pushed its way through the area.

One person from a local business suffered minor injuries, according to the Montebello Fire Department.

Fire officials said city inspectors examined 17 buildings in the tornado-affected area, and 11 of them were red-tagged, or marked unsuitable for occupation.

According to residents, the streets around the epicenter were closed for several hours, and nearby homes and buses lost power from Washington Boulevard east to Whittier Boulevard, and from Vail Avenue south to Greenwood Avenue.

Tornado hits south maple ave in Montebello tearing the roof off multiple buildings and destroying multiple cars pic.twitter.com/yJrbuPMccj

— SaveArtsakh (@njtehcherchian) March 22, 2023

 

First responders were on the scene much of the day, said Montebello spokesman Michael Chee.

By early evening, Chee confirmed that power was still spotty in the area, and projected it to remain down until Thursday. Power assessments would be conducted by Edison.

“City Public Works crews have cleaned up the streets, cleaned up debris so there’s no threat to public safety and public spaces,” Chee said. “So now the operation shifts to the private businesses and their recovery and reports with their insurance companies.”

By 7 p.m., street lights near the epicenter of the tornado were still out.

Near the epicenter of where a tornado touched down in Montebello this morning, most of the debris has been cleaned up but streetlights from Bluff Rd west to Maple Ave are still out pic.twitter.com/R9qMlvrxtA

— John Orona (@Oaknutjohn) March 23, 2023

But aside from the off-and-on downpour deluging the streets, by Wednesday evening there was no sign of any unusual weather Montebello, let alone a tornado.

The streets were clear of debris, with damage apparently concentrated on the rooftops of the commercial buildings.

Todd Hall, meteorologist for National Weather Service, explained that across the state Californians experience between seven and 10 tornadoes a year, mostly between November and March.

Los Angeles, on average, will experience one to two tornadoes a year. While this occurred later in the timeline, the recent storm drummed up the precise conditions needed for a landspout.

Hall added that other factors such as wind direction or time of day play their part as well. The likelihood of another tornado occurring in the same place following an event is unlikely, he said.

But when they happen, “it just has to be in the right — the right scenario,” Hall said.

The winter storms inspired not one but two tornadoes in California this week. A small tornado briefly touched down in Carpinteria on Tuesday night, damaging around two dozen mobile homes.

“We have this stable marine layer always in place across California,” Hall said. “A lot of these tornadoes last only like a minute or two because the environment is so isolated for these things to develop. As a result, we have short-lived tornadoes out here.”

City News Service and the Associated Press contributed to this story.