Videos Show Tornado Tearing Through Greater Los Angeles Area

Stock image of a tornado in the distance. Video footage of a powerful and damaging tornado ripping through the Greater Los Angeles area has gone viral on social media.

Video footage of a powerful tornado ripping through the Greater Los Angeles area has gone viral on social media.

The National Weather Service Los Angeles Twitter page confirmed that a tornado hit Montebello, California, at about 11:20 a.m. on Wednesday.

The state of California has been struck with extreme weather conditions in recent weeks, with some climate experts warning that such weather could become the new normal.

Tom Corringham, a research economist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, previously told Newsweek that California could expect more of these extreme weather patterns in the future as the climate warms.

He said: “Rising temperatures in California dry out our landscapes, leading to longer droughts and more severe fire seasons.

“Higher temperatures also allow the atmosphere to hold more water vapor, leading to more intense storms.”

The video of the tornado has been viewed more than 800,000 times since being posted on Twitter on Wednesday.

In the clip, debris can be seen swirling in the air as more parts of a building are ripped off its roof.

The tornado that struck the Montebello area on Wednesday was given an EF rating of 1 (from EF0 to EF5), meaning its three-second gusts were between 86 mph and110 mph.

In a public information statement, the Los Angeles NWS stated that the tornado on Wednesday was the strongest to impact the Los Angeles Metro area since March 1983.

“A small tornado briefly touched down in an industrial park and warehouse district in Montebello in the late morning hours of Wednesday, March 22, 2023. Seventeen structures were damaged, eleven significantly. A tree was uprooted and a power pole was snapped with the transformer ripped off,” it said.

The RAWSALERTS Twitter page has also shared footage of the tornado and the destruction could be seen in a clip that has gone viral. The video has so far been viewed more than 850,000 times.

The page captioned the clip: “Damaging Tornado touches down near downtown Los Angeles.

“Watch as a extremely rare damaging tornado touches down in Montebello California about 8 miles from downtown Los Angeles as Debris flies in the air reports of multiple buildings have been severely damage one person has been injured.”

In one part of the video, cars had their windows broken as the tornado passed. The clip also shows the damage sustained by a building.

Speaking about the damage sustained by the tornado, the NWS damage assessment report said: “The tornado primarily impacted an industrial warehouse/commercial business district.

“Warehouse roofing material consisted of wood frame structure with plywood and roofing material collapsed. Almost a total roof collapse occurred in one building.

“An HVAC unit was ejected from the top of the building. Skylights were broken. Wood cross beams collapsed. A power pole was snapped with a transformer

blown off.

“Cars were damaged with windows destroyed. A healthy pine tree with a trunk diameter of one foot was uprooted. Seventeen structures were damaged and eleven structures had significant damage.”

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