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EF0 tornado in Fresno County, California

Tornado May 19, 2019 · Fresno County, California

EF0

Rating

0.3 mi

Path length

100 yd

Path width

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

NWS storm survey team determined that an EF0 tornado touched down 6 miles east of Huron and was on the ground for less than 1 minute. Radar velocity profiles estimated 70 mph winds. Video of the circulation was posted on several social media networks.

The wider storm

A strong upper level low pressure system moved into central California during the afternoon of May 18. A cold front associated with this system pushed across the area overnight bringing periods of moderate to locally heavy precipitation to the area with much of the area picking up between 0.75 and 2 inches of liquid precipitation. As a result, many long standing daily rainfall records were shattered on both May 18 and on May 19. The precipitation mainly fell as snow above 6000 feet, and brought an additional 8 to 14 inches of snow to much of the higher Sierra Nevada range from Yosemite Park southward. Thunderstorms broke out across the San Joaquin Valley in the unstable post-frontal airmass during the afternoon of May 19. There were several reports of small hail and locally heavy rainfall from areas impacted by these thunderstorms. One strong cell produced a small EF0 tornado near Huron as well as some wind damage.

Began near Westhaven (36.2000, -119.9900).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 814192. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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