Tornado in California, December 22, 1996

Name: Tornado in California, December 22, 1996
Start: 1996-12-22T09:00
End: 1996-12-22T09:05
Location: California

December 22, 1996 · NWS SGX · 1 event in 1 county or zone

1 tornado, as filed by the National Weather Service.

Where it happened

Every event with a place to put it. Tap one for its entry below.

Tornadoes
Tropical storms and surge
Floods
Wind
Hail
Winter weather
Heat and drought
Cold
Fire, smoke and dust
Marine and coastal
Other

Open the live radar over this ground

The toll

Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
Property damage: None recorded
Crop damage: None recorded
Events: 1

Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.

The radar

The national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.

Open the radar archive at this moment

Event by event

1 tornado. Local standard time, as filed.

Tornado, Riverside

When: December 22, 9:00 AM PST to 9:05 AM PST
Where: Riverside County, Cabazon
Rating: F1
Path length: 0.1 mi
Path width: 25 yd
Coordinates: 33.920, -116.780

A cold front sweeping through Southern California, was accompanied by strong, gusty winds and bursts of moderate to heavy precipitation. As the front moved through the San Gorgonio Pass, a short lived tornado spun up at Cabazon. The twister was noticed by firemen near the corner of Dell and Lemon, and moved northeastward only about 700 feet before dissipating. On it's short path, it lifted a 5 ton mobile home and deposited it 30 feet from it''s foundation with roof and contents removed. Six other mobile homes suffered minor damage.

What these are

Tornado: A violently rotating column of air in contact with the ground and extending from a thunderstorm, filed with its path, width and Fujita or Enhanced Fujita rating from the damage survey.

After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.

The same day elsewhere

Every storm in California in 1996 Every state in 1996 This day in weather history The tornado archive for California, 1996 Warnings in California, December 1996

Sources

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-10-01. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 5582380.