Three tornadoes confirmed in California in a single day

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

California is known for having earthquakes, wildfires and the rare tsunami, but after Tuesday you may want to add tornadoes to the conversation.According to the National Weather Service, three separate tornadoes were confirmed in the state on Tuesday afternoon, one ripping the metal roof off a barn and snapping tree trunks in half.Given the conditions in the state yesterday — moderate temperatures on the ground nearing 70 degrees, but frigid atmospheric temperatures recorded at -22 degrees — forecasters thought they could see a tornado form at some point Tuesday, said Carlos Molina, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Hanford.“If we’d seen one we would’ve been in the ballpark, but to see three is a little more unusual,” Molina said.The strongest of the three was around Clovis in Fresno County and formed at 5:16 p.m.with wind speeds up to 125 mph, he said.

Experts were on the ground about 15 minutes later to confirm the reports and found trees ripped from their root systems and a barn with its roof freshly torn off.There were photos of trees broken in half at the trunk, Molina said.A tornado’s intensity is determined, in part, by the damage it causes and the damage around Clovis elevated Tuesday’s tornado to an EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, Molina said.The other two tornadoes occurred earlier in the day.

They were both classified as EF0, Molina said.The first was in Madera County, in the Sierra foothills between the city of Madera and the town of Coarsegold deeper in the hills at about 2:19 p.m.The second one formed to the west in Merced County in Atwater at about 5 p.m., Molina said.All three tornadoes were created by a mix of the warm air rising from the ground and very cold air in the atmosphere sinking at the same time.The rising heat and sinking cold created a rotation effect that encouraged tornadoes, he said.In an average year, ...