On Wednesday, a rare yet severe tornado slammed a Los Angeles suburb, ripping roofs from a row of commercial buildings and sending debris twisting into the AWN.
The National Weather Service confirmed the tornado touched down in Montebello at roughly 11.20 a.m. on Wednesday, injuring one person.
The tornado produced winds of 86mph to 110mph, making it the strongest tornado to impact the Los Angeles metropolitan region since March 1983, according to the weather service.
“It’s absolutely not something that’s normal for the region,” said weather service meteorologist Rose Schoenfeld.
The injured person was brought to a hospital in Montebello, according to city spokesman Alex Gillman, who did not know the extent of the injuries.
According to the fire department, debris was thrown across more than one city block, while inspectors investigated 17 buildings in the neighbourhood and declared 11 of them unfit. Numerous automobiles were also damaged.
Michael Turner, a tornado survivor, said he could hear the gusts getting stronger from inside his office at his 33,000-square-foot warehouse just south of downtown Montebello.
Once the lights began to flicker, he stepped outside to see his staff staring up at the ominous AWN before ushering everyone inside.
“It got quite loud, and things were flying everywhere,” Mr Turner added. “For a brief moment, the entire factory became a massive dust bowl, and when the dust cleared, the place was a shambles.”
Among other things, a 5,000-square-foot portion of Mr Turner’s roof was “simply gone.”
Turner Fiberfill, his polyester fibre firm, could be closed for months, he said, adding, “I’ve been in California since 1965. Never seen anything like this. Earthquakes – we’re used to that.”
The catastrophic weather comes on the heels of a powerful late-season Pacific storm that delivered devastating winds as well as extra rain and snow to already-saturated California.
According to the National Weather Service, the storm was weakening from north to south in California while moving inland across the southwest, the Four Corners region, and the central and southern Rockies.
‘Explosive cyclogenesis’ causes extreme weather.
Meteorologists said the violent weather in California was triggered by an unusual drop in barometric pressure over the eastern Pacific, which they called “explosive cyclogenesis” – also known as a “bomb cyclone.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain corroborated this theory in a briefing on Tuesday, stating the weather system has passed the benchmark for a phenomena known as bombogenesis, or a “bomb cyclone,” signifying a rapid drop in pressure.
Two individuals were murdered on Tuesday as the storm pounded the San Francisco Bay area with strong winds and heavy rain. So far, the storms have claimed the lives of five people.
On Tuesday, another tornado struck a mobile home park in the Santa Barbara County community of Carpinteria, causing damage to approximately 25 homes.
In other news, some north-central Arizona homeowners have been advised to prepare to evacuate their houses on Tuesday due to rising water levels in rivers and basins.
According to PowerOutage.us, approximately 82,000 people in the state were without power Wednesday evening.