After a particularly harsh winter in the western US state, a tornado ripped through a Southern California city on Wednesday, tearing off roofs and cars.
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A rotating air mass typically found in the country’s central plains passed through Montebello, a few miles from Los Angeles.
“The tornado tore the roof off the building. All the car windows were smashed. Cars were destroyed, it was chaos,” one trader told local channel KTLA.
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Videos show rotating roof elements appearing above industrial buildings in the city of more than 60,000 people.
And aerial footage exposed the extent of the damage: holes in many roofs, twisted and broken pipes and cars being pushed out of their parking spaces.
The National Weather Service NWS said it was investigating a “weak tornado” and another event in Carpinteria, about 150 km to the west.
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This other tornado “damaged approximately 25 mobile homes,” the NWS said.
The agency’s initial estimates put wind speeds of nearly 140 km/h in both cyclones.
“This is a very significant tornado for the general public (from California) as it impacted a populated area, clearly causing damage and possibly injury,” meteorologist Daniel Swain tweeted.
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The hurricane came on the tail end of a heavy rain and snowstorm that hit California and caused power outages that affected hundreds of thousands of people.
Large parts of the state are under flood warnings, and a significant portion of Tulare County, home to Sequoia National Park, is still under water.
The western United States has seen record amounts of snow and precipitation in recent weeks.
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The recent storms in California, like others this season, are fed by a giant corridor of rain from an “atmospheric river” around Hawaii that transports stored water vapor in the tropics.
With California’s reservoirs at their highest levels in years, California water officials believe that could all turn for the worse soon if next winter runs dry in 2022.
Although it is difficult to establish a direct link between these storms and climate change, scientists continue to explain that warming is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
