EF1 Tornado — Riverside, California

2015-08-06 · near Mecca, Riverside, California

Event narrative

The damage was west of Highway 111 between 64th and 66th Avenues, paralleling Highway 86 towards the mountains, or approximately 3 1/2 miles. An emergency manager for the Imperial irrigation water district (IID) reported a total of 140 poles damaged, 30 of which were steel.

Wider weather episode

Monsoon moisture and some instability from an easterly wave resulted in scattered thunderstorms over the mountains and lower deserts. Most notable of these was a severe thunderstorm that occurred near Mecca in the southern Coachella Valley during the evening. This storm produced a copious amount of lightning and very strong, damaging winds (over 100 power poles damaged or destroyed). While the precipitation did not hit many gages, the Kent Sea Farms gage, near Mecca, recorded 0.32 inches of rain with this storm. After storm damage surveys, it was concluded that the most likely cause of the damage was a brief, nearly-stationary, EF1 tornado.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.5646, -116.1083)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 599391. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.