A Los Angeles suburb was hit by a potential tornado Wednesday afternoon, with significant damage to a line of commercial buildings and one person injured.
The National Weather Service sent crews to assess damage in Montebello, as well as the city of Carpinteria, where another tornado was rumored to strike Tuesday.
Five structures and a small number of vehicles were damaged, but the full evaluation is still ongoing.
The only individual who was injured was taken to the hospital, but the severity of the injury is unknown, according to city spokesman Alex Gillman.
The probability that the violent cloud was a tornado is “highly possible,” said meteorologist Rose Schoenfeld. “It’s definitely not common in the region,” she said in a weather service statement.
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Schoenfeld noted that the last time they sent out tornado assessment teams from their Los Angeles office was for an event in Ventura County in 2016.
The severe weather was part of a massive rain storm that hit San Francisco earlier this week, killing two people.
Trees and power lines were downed during the storm, several glass windows were blown out of San Francisco skyscrapers, and three barges broke loose, causing damage to a nearby bridge.
A record was broken in Los Angeles, as the 1.4 inches of rain exceeded the 1.34 inches recorded in 1983.
About 121,000 customers across California were without power early Wednesday, according to poweroutage.us.
For the state emerging from an unusual winter marked by a “blizzard warning” plus heavy rain and snow in its mountainous regions, the early days of spring have brought much the same.
with cable news services
