The Los Angeles office of the National Weather Service confirmed a tornado moved through the Pico Rivera area near downtown early Thursday, as a powerful storm system battered Southern California with heavy rain and damaging winds. The office classified it as a zero, the lowest level on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which runs up to five.
Although tornadoes are unusual for the region, they are not unheard of, especially this time of year.
“The L.A. basin area tends to be a magnet for tornadoes for this time of year,” said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the NWS Los Angeles office. “I’d say March is a favorable month for them in this area.”
Before Thursday, the most recent tornado reported near downtown Los Angeles was in March 2023, when a strong twister tore through Montebello, about eight miles east of downtown Los Angeles, damaging warehouses and nearby buildings. In March 1983, two tornadoes, one in downtown Los Angeles and one in Pasadena, caused widespread damage and numerous injuries as part of a storm system that left at least nine dead across the West Coast.
The tornado on Thursday coincided with a storm system slamming into Southern California late Wednesday and early Thursday, unleashing bouts of heavy rain, gusty winds and prompting widespread weather alerts.
An 8.5-mile stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway was shut down between Malibu and the Palisades due to the risk of debris flows. High winds buffeted traffic and waterways swelled with storm water. High surf advisories were issued as waves up to 13 feet crashed into beaches from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo Counties. Firefighters in the East Los Angeles community of Boyle Heights used a ladder to pull a man out of the surging Los Angeles River shortly before 4 a.m.
Evacuation warnings were issued to neighborhoods near the ruins of the January fires in Pacific Palisades, Sylmar, Hollywood, Mandeville Canyon, Malibu and Altadena, advising them to prepare to leave in advance of impending danger. In the San Gabriel Valley, authorities took a firmer stand in northern Sierra Madre, a foothill city with a population of about 11,000 near the Eaton fire burn scar, ordering residents on Wednesday to leave.
Rainfall totals reached an inch and a half in lower-elevation areas of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties on Thursday morning, and up to three inches was recorded in foothill and mountain slopes. Strong winds accompanied the storm, with gusts over 70 miles per hour reported in some locations, toppling trees that damaged vehicles.
The Weather Service also issued multiple flash flood warnings throughout the night and into Thursday morning, urging residents in vulnerable areas, including Malibu, Oxnard, Simi Valley and Pasadena, to move to higher ground immediately.
By Thursday morning, the heaviest rains had shifted out of Los Angeles County and into Orange County, though showers and isolated thunderstorms were expected to linger through Thursday afternoon. Rose Schoenfeld, a meteorologist at the Los Angeles office of the Weather Service, warned that the risk of flash flooding and debris flows would persist.
“The thunderstorms could produce flash flooding impacts, gusty winds and small hail,” Ms. Schoenfeld said. “But overall, the main part of the storm has exited L.A. County.”
Thousands of people in Los Angeles County were driven from their homes by wildfires two months ago. This week’s storm system was the second in a month to set off a cascade of intense preparation as traumatized fire survivors and state and local authorities rushed to prevent the fire-stripped soil from turning into a slurry of muck and debris and sliding out from under remaining homes, roads and buildings. A similar storm in mid-February generated several minor debris flows and at least a dozen close calls, including that of a Los Angeles fire inspector whose vehicle was swept off the road and into the Pacific Ocean by a mudslide near Malibu.
County, urban search and rescue teams and swiftwater rescue teams worked to support 12 flood related incidents. One incident included a LAFD member who was swept off the road and into the ocean near Malibu., but the proactive response prevented significant damage or injuries.
By the weekend, forecasters predict dry and warmer conditions returning to the region.
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