Three rare tornadoes touched the ground in California’s Central Valley on Tuesday, stirring up a lot of excitement but causing only minor damage and no injuries, according to a preliminary report from the National Weather Service.
The tornadoes formed in Fresno and Madera Counties during an outbreak of thunderstorms that also delivered a heavy pounding of rain, wind and hail as a storm system moved across the state.
A funnel cloud is officially called a tornado only if it touches the ground, and once one is confirmed, experts on the ground determine its strength on the five-point enhanced Fujita scale by measuring the damage it has caused.
Soon after tornado reports emerged on Tuesday, a survey team from the Weather Service office in Hanford headed to the scene and also used information from the public, law enforcement agencies, the media and emergency managers to confirm the details. The team released its report on Wednesday.
The first tornado touched down at 2:10 p.m., according to the Weather Service’s survey. It passed near the community of Biola, damaging trees in a walnut grove as it generated winds up to 70 miles per hour and traveled 150 feet, about half the length of a football field. The survey classified it as an EF0, the weakest on the scale.
A little over an hour later, another tornado formed west of Atwater and kicked up 95-m.p.h. winds as it spun along for a half mile and snapped some trees. This one was classified as an EF1.
Then at 5:09 p.m., another EF1 took shape, northeast of Clovis, traveling roughly the same distance but generating winds up to 110 m.p.h. and causing damage to some homes.
“Sheet metal was thrown around into a field,” said Brandolyn Baeza, one of the meteorologists with the Weather Service who surveyed the area.
Kris Mattarochia, a meteorologist with the agency, estimated that at least 20 funnel clouds had also been spotted in the area.
“Funnel clouds aren’t that unusual for the area,” he said. “Basically they’re created by air rapidly cooling at 10,000 feet.”
But they only rarely make it all the way to the ground.
Tornadoes are unusual in California compared with other parts of the country, such as the Plains and the Midwest, where they are more common.
Between 1950 and 2025, there were 487 tornadoes confirmed in California, according to data from Golden Gate Weather Service. There have been about two dozen days where three or more tornadoes have occurred in the state since 1950.
The data shows that most tornadoes in California occur in the Central Valley and in coastal Southern California. Los Angeles County recorded more tornadoes than any other county, with 50 in the last 75 years.
Jan Null, a meteorologist who tracks California weather and runs the Golden Gate website, said the reported numbers could be higher in Southern California because there are more people living there to spot them.
Tornadoes are usually spawned from large thunderstorms that occur only in certain weather conditions. They need a specific set of circumstances to form: an unstable atmosphere, moisture in the atmosphere to fuel the storms and a source of “lift” that pushes the air upward.
Mr. Mattarochia said California is usually too dry for tornadoes to form, but on Tuesday the conditions in the San Joaquin Valley were just right. A wet storm system coming off the Pacific Ocean brought moisture into the region, and when the clouds broke in the afternoon, the sun warmed the ground, causing the air to rise and thunderstorms to form.
“This was a scenario where we had all the ingredients come together,” he said.
Amy Graff is a Times reporter covering weather, wildfires and earthquakes.
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