A powerful tornado hit the city of Montebello (California), just eight miles east of Los Angeles, on Wednesday, injuring one person, damaging multiple roofs and cars, in an unusual event for that region.
The tornado, which struck around 11:15 am [local time], sent large amounts of debris into the air as a result of the cone of winds, according to local media reports.
"It felt like a bomb, as if something had exploded. I saw everything flying around, all the debris.
It was something strange, we are not used to that
," a witness identified as Miguel told the local channel FOX11.
Winds damaged roofs Wednesday in the Montebello region of California.AP
The National Weather Service said it had sent a team to assess damage in Montebello
and Carpinteria, a city in southern Santa Barbara County, where another possible tornado struck Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.
"It's definitely something that's not common for the region," said Rose Schoenfeld, who works with the National Weather Service.
The last time the Los Angeles Weather Service Office sent crews to assess damage for a tornado was in 2016, near Fillmore, in Aventura County, where a tornado was determined to have touched down, Schoenfeld said, quoted by the PA.
Damage caused Wednesday by a tornado in Montebello, California.AP
The whirlpool swept up a substantial amount of debris and inspectors checked 17 damaged buildings in the area, 11 of which
were declared uninhabitable
, according to the Fire Department.
A busy stormy season
The rare and powerful weather event takes place amid a late-season Pacific storm that has brought strong winds, rain, snow and flooding to California.
At least five people die in California from the scourge of a new storm
March 22, 202302:14
Two people were killed Tuesday during a storm that battered the San Francisco Bay Area with strong gusts of wind and heavy rain.
The severe weather was caused by
an extraordinary drop in barometric pressure
over the eastern Pacific, which forecasters called "explosive cyclogenesis."
Trees and power lines were also downed and windows were blown out of two skyscrapers in San Francisco on Tuesday, NBC reported.
Storm damage in Montebello, Calif., on Wednesday, March 22, 2023.AP
In the Bay Area community of Portola Valley, a man was killed while driving a truck that was struck by a tree, California Highway Police reported.
A driver was injured and a passenger was killed after a giant tree crushed a car in the Rossmoor community, the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District said.
The tornado ripped off part of the roof and destroyed vehicles at the Royal Paper Box Company facility in Montebello, California on Wednesday, March 22, 2022.Getty Images
Some 121,000 customers were without power in the early hours of Wednesday across the state
, the PowerOutage.us website reported.
The unexpected rains that have hit California after years of drought were preceded by snow storms in February.
The storms have caused flooding and dumped so much snow on the mountains that the roofs of some houses have collapsed and authorities have struggled to prevent avalanches on the roads.
