EF1 Tornado — Glenn, California

2014-03-26 · near Artois, Glenn, California

Event narrative

Based on eye witness interviews, this tornado originated around 5:45 pm at a residence along CR 39, west of Road P. Based on damage, the tornado appeared to track along the fence of the residence, taking out deciduous trees before turning west and taking out the chain link fence. It threw lawn furniture into the residences pool, and lifted an awning up. Two support beams under the awning were pushed over before the awning was returned to it's original location resting on the remaining support beams. The tornado then tracked through some orange trees, relieving them of a majority of their fruit, then another row of deciduous trees, pushing them to the west. The tornado then tracked through their almond tree orchard uprooting or breaking 60+ of their trees and removing almonds from other trees. The tornado tracked west to the next resident's orchard taking out another dozen or so of his trees, but a majority of the crop was stripped off the trees. It then hit a tractor parked near his orchard, removing the shade shield and throwing it 157 feet. (Weight is 90 lbs). It also damaged a large eucalyptus tree with a large portion of the tree falling in between the residence and an outbuilding, with a portion landing on a dog kennel just below the tree. 2 trucks on the premises had a back and passenger rear window blown out by flying debris or hail. One of the tucks also sustained damage to a metal tool box in back of the truck. A debris path was apparent across CR 39 as it moved south of the road and impacted another almond orchard. Not much damage to north end of orchard, so tornado may have lifted up for a bit. Tornado touched back down just behind the residence and uprooted/broke 30+ trees. A cotton wood tree on the east end of the residence, top 1/3 of the tree was broken off, and landed immediately to the west into an alfalfa field. Toward the end of the row of almond trees near the residence, one of the uprooted trees was thrown 227 yards WSW into the alfalfa field. There was also a 24 foot debris path across the gravel road where the tree was dragged/carried into the field.

Wider weather episode

A trough over the eastern Pacific dropped southward over the region bringing a series of shortwaves across interior Northern California. These shortwaves brought enough instability and moisture to produce tornadic supercells to interior NorCal. One tornado was reported on March 25th and five tornadoes were reported on March 26th. The trough also brought heavy snow to the Northern Sierra Nevada and Western Plumas County, mainly Wednesday and Wednesday night (March 26) with snow levels dropping to 4000-5000 ft.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (39.5845, -122.1446)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 508190. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.