EF2 tornado, March Afb to Alessandro, California, May 22, 2008

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

EF2

Date

May 22, 2008

Touchdown

4:42 PM PDT (23:42 UTC)

Lifted

5:03 PM PDT (00:03 UTC)

On the ground

21 minutes

Path length

2.8 miles (4.5 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$350,000

County

Riverside County

Touchdown point

33.883, -117.255

Lift-off point

33.857, -117.292

Record number

0805221742-01

A thunderstorm developed near Redlands around 3:30 PM and quickly became severe as it moved south-southwest toward Moreno Valley along the Elsinore Convergence Zone. This storm produced large swaths of hail, flash flooding, and at least four tornadoes.

Observations from KRIV indicate that this tornado touched down on March Field at 4:42 PM, traveled approximately three miles in a west-southwest direction for 21 minutes, and had a max width of 75 yards. As the tornado crossed Interstate 215, a semi-truck was lifted 30 to 40 feet into the air and nine empty BNSF railroad cars were derailed. The driver of the semi had to be extricated using the ���jaws of life��� and was hospitalized for over a month due to moderate head injuries. The tornado also damaged the roofs of several homes and a trailer on Kuder Ave. It should be noted that another tornado developed nearby while this tornado was in progress. Based on input from Dr. Kisho Mehta and Tim Marshall, damage to the rail cars was consistent with wind gusts up to 120 mph, or an EF-2 tornado. This is the first EF-2 tornado in California since the new scale was implemented in February 2007, and the first F2 tornado in California since the 1998 Sunnyvale tornado.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

The Santa Ana Mts radar (KSOX), 34 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:42 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2008 tornado in CaliforniaEvery tornado in California since 1950Warnings in force in California nowThe forecast where you are

27 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.