Tornadoes · United States · California · 2011
EF0 tornado, Berg to Sunset, California, June 1, 2011
From Berg to Sunset, this EF0 tornado ran 5.1 miles across Sutter County on June 1, 2011, touching down at 6:30 PM PDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
EF2111 to 135 mph
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF0
- Date
- June 1, 2011
- Touchdown
- 6:30 PM PDT (01:30 UTC)
- Lifted
- 6:33 PM PDT (01:33 UTC)
- On the ground
- 3 minutes
- Path length
- 5.1 miles (8.3 km)
- Path width
- 10 yards (9 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Crop damage
- $50,000
- County
- Sutter County
- Touchdown point
- 39.183, -121.672
- Lift-off point
- 39.248, -121.625
- Record number
- 1106011930-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A tornado touched down north of the Yuba City/Marysville metro area in Sutter and Yuba counties.
At approximately 5:30 pm an EF0 tornado touched down north of Yuba City and moved northeast, crossing from Sutter County into Yuba County and thereby north of Marysville. There was little damage in the area that appeared to be caused by the tornado. The determining factor was the credible description and sequence of events by witnesses who saw the tornado develop and move through peach and walnut groves. There were no injuries nor fatalities.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
26 minutes of warning. NWS STO issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:04 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:45 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00:32 UTC | 01:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | STO |
| 01:04 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | STO |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:58 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 air that afternoon
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.
Oakland, CA (KOAK), 00:00Z
1.5 hours before the tornado, 172 km from the path. June 2, 2011.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 5 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -9 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 703 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1087 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 42 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 8 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 40 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 74 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 8.5 K/km
Oakland, CA (KOAK), 12:00Z
10.5 hours after it, 172 km from the path. June 2, 2011.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 4 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -4 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 615 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 53 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 10 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 61 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 131 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.6 K/km
The radar
The Beale AFB radar (KBBX), 31 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:30 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:30 UTC | HAIL 0.25 | Roseville | Placer, CA | SMALL HAIL COVERING ROADWAYS ALONG INTERSTATE 80. |
| 23:30 UTC | TORNADO | 5 Nne Yuba City | Yuba, CA | EMERGENCY MANAGER REPORTED TORNADO ON GROUND. |
| 00:30 UTC | TORNADO | 5 Nne Yuba City | Yuba, CA | EMERGENCY MANAGER REPORTED TORNADO ON GROUND - CORRECTED TIME TO 530P FROM EARLIER LSR |
| 00:40 UTC | TORNADO | 3 W Marysville | Sutter, CA | OBSERVED TORNADO ON THE GROUND TO THE NORTH. |
| 00:40 UTC | TORNADO | W Sutter | Sutter, CA | OBSERVED TORNADO ON THE GROUND TO THE NORTHEAST. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2011 tornado in CaliforniaEvery tornado in California since 1950Warnings in force in California nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 1, 2011
11 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 1 | 3:35 PM EDT | EF1 | Oxford, ME | 0.3 | 25 | |||
| June 1 | 4:17 PM EDT | EF3 | Hampden, MA | 37.6 | 880 | 3 | 200 | $228 million |
| June 1 | 5:51 PM EDT | EF1 | Somerset, ME | 8.4 | 200 | |||
| June 1 | 6:32 PM EDT | EF1 | Hampden, MA | 4.2 | 200 | |||
| June 1 | 6:54 PM EDT | EF1 | Hampden, MA | 1.7 | 100 | |||
| June 1 | 7:10 PM EDT | EF0 | Worcester, MA | 1.4 | 25 | |||
| June 1 | 6:22 PM CDT | EF0 | Dawson, NE | 0.1 | 15 | |||
| June 1 | 8:20 PM CDT | EF0 | Lincoln, KS | 1.1 | 75 | |||
| June 1 | 8:48 PM CDT | EF0 | Russell, KS | 0.4 | 50 | |||
| June 1 | 9:40 PM CDT | EF0 | Phillips, KS | 0.5 | 20 | |||
| June 1 | 11:33 PM CDT | EF0 | Saline, KS | 0.4 | 50 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.