EF0 tornado, Octol, California, November 9, 2012

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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.

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

EF0

Date

November 9, 2012

Touchdown

12:55 PM PST (20:55 UTC)

Lifted

12:58 PM PST (20:58 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Tulare County

Touchdown point

36.110, -119.289

Lift-off point

36.109, -119.284

Record number

1211091455-01

An upper-level ridge was over California at the start of November, creating a stable environment across the central California interior. Fresno tied its record high minimum temperature for the 2nd of 56 degrees, last set in 1941. Areas of fog developed in the central and southern San Joaquin Valley during the morning of November 3rd, but considerably less fog formed the next day.||The ridge remained over California through the 7th, then gave way to an approaching upper-level low. Light showers developed over the Tehachapi Mountains during the late morning of November 8th, as subtropical moisture moved into Kern County and collided with a cold front dropping south through the San Joaquin Valley. This set up a convergence zone over the Tehachapi Mountains that triggered the convection. ||Heavy snow showers also occurred in the Southern Sierra Nevada, where up to one foot of new snow fell on November 8th. This was a significant impact to the mountain regions since quite a bit of mountain recreation was still going on at this time.||After this system moved through, As a result, the air remained moisture laden. A weak short-wave ridge moved over California during the night of November 8th-9th, but this was enough to trigger dense fog development over much of Kings County as well as southern Fresno and western Tulare Counties.||Thunderstorms developed during the afternoon of November 9th. One of these thunderstorms triggered a weak tornado (rated EF0), that touched down 4 miles north northeast of Tipton at 12:55 PM PST. No damage was reported. This was the 86th tornado to touch down in the WFO Hanford���s seven-county warning/forecast area since records began in the 1950���s, and was the 13th to touch down in Tulare County. Other thunderstorms dropped pea-sized hail on northern Hanford. In the Southern Sierra Nevada, several inches of snow fell above 6000 feet, and a couple of inches of snow fell on the floor of Yosemite Valley.||In the wake of this storm, an unseasonably cold airmass settled over the central California interior. Low temperatures fell below freezing across parts of the central and southern San Joaquin Valley on the morning of November 11th and 12th, and the Kern County deserts had their first hard freeze of the season.

Report on the weak tornado that occurred south of Tulare on November 9th.||Here are the storm survey results of the tornado. The location was between Tulare and Tipton near the Intersection of avenue 176 and road 128. Tornado lasted for about 3 minutes and did not interact with any private property or buildings. Some branches and corn husks were strewn about. Several eyewitness accounts corroborated a video provided by local media. The tornado path included several utility poles that were not damaged. ||The eyewitness video courtesy of KMPH Channel 26 is available on our website.||Wind speed estimate: 65 mph||This was the 86th confirmed tornado in the central California Interior since 1950...and the 13th to strike Tulare county. The last Tornado in Tulare county was on January 27th 2008...when an ef0 touched down 1 mile east of Goshen junction. The most recent tornado in the central California interior occurred on march 17th 2012 when |An ef0 tornado touched down 4 miles southwest of tranquility in Fresno County.

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.

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 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.

Porterville (PTV), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The San Joaquin Valley radar (KHNX), 38 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:53 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 2012 tornado in CaliforniaEvery tornado in California since 1950Warnings in force in California nowThe forecast where you are

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.