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Tornadoes in winter are a rare occurrence, but even rarer this week was when two tornadoes struck Northern California, while in the central US, a possible tornado struck Texas. Plus, a record-setting storm in North Pacific.
Tornadoes in winter are rare enough, but it’s doubly rare for tornadoes to strike in the state of California, as most tornadoes occur east of the Continental divide. It’s rarer still for a pair of twisters to touch down in the Golden State. But that’s exactly what happened on Monday, January 4, 2021, courtesy of an upper level low, which delivered a pocket of chilly air at high altitudes. As a result, a pair of tornadoes snaked and danced over open fields in Tahoma County, which is northwest of Chico and south of Redding, near Interstate 5 in northern California.
The first tornado touched down west of Corning around 1:34 PM, a rural area with mostly agricultural land, and caused some minor damage to power lines, trees and a barn, The Washington Post reported.
The second of the twisters touched down at 2:40 PM near Vina, the National Weather Service (NWS) in Sacramento reported. There was no damage reported with the tornado, according to KRON 4 in San Francisco.
The National Weather Service is investigating whether it was a tornado or straight-line winds in Texas City, Texas, that caused major damage to the area, forcing evacuations, causing flooding and disrupting electricity.
Severe storms rolled through just after 6 PM on Wednesday, turning buildings into piles of debris, ABC 13 Houston reports. The strong winds obliterated buildings, which included a convenience store. Damage occurred to trees and power lines, as well as some streets flooded. Some families in the area were forced to sleep in hotels due to damage to their homes. Residents at the Tradewinds Apartments had to be evacuated due to storm damage to some units.
The Brazos Urethane building on 6th Street North suffered major damage and the road was closed while crews moved debris, KHOU11 reports.
The weather event also caused power outages, which delayed the opening of schools on Thursday. Disasters such as these are a reminder that your critical data can be wiped out in an instant or lost during a power failure. That’s why it’s so crucial to backup your data to an off-site location through cloud data security programs.
On New Year’s Eve, the last day of weather record-keeping for the year 2020, a new low-pressure record was set as the strongest cyclone the North Pacific has seen in 60 years occurred, the Guardian reported.
The storm created a powerful cyclogenesis, which is the development and strengthening of cyclonic circulation in the atmosphere. A record low pressure of 921 millibars was set by the extratropical storm. It also set records for Alaska and the Bering Sea as it continued onward.
