Tornadoes · United States · California · 2014

EF0 tornado, Pleasant Grove, California, March 26, 2014

This EF0 tornado ran 0.6 miles across Sutter County on March 26, 2014, touching down at 5:24 PM PDT and reaching 25 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
March 26, 2014
Touchdown
5:24 PM PDT (00:24 UTC)
Lifted
5:26 PM PDT (00:26 UTC)
On the ground
2 minutes
Path length
0.6 miles (1.0 km)
Path width
25 yards (23 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Sutter County
Touchdown point
38.805, -121.534
Lift-off point
38.806, -121.522
Record number
1403261824-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A trough over the eastern Pacific dropped southward over the region bringing a series of shortwaves across interior Northern California. These shortwaves brought enough instability and moisture to produce tornadic supercells to interior NorCal. One tornado was reported on March 25th and five tornadoes were reported on March 26th. The trough also brought heavy snow to the Northern Sierra Nevada and Western Plumas County, mainly Wednesday and Wednesday night (March 26) with snow levels dropping to 4000-5000 ft.

An EF0 tornado touched down in a field just south of Nicolaus at approximately 5:17pm and lasted a duration of a couple minutes. No damage was reported from the tornado besides swirl marks on the ground.

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

The warnings

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.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
00:40 UTC01:30 UTCTornado WarningSTO
01:12 UTC01:32 UTCTornado WarningSTO

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 19:43 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

0.4 hours before the tornado, 133 km from the path. March 27, 2014.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Oakland, CA at 00:00Z on 2014-03-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 48 joules per kilogram, CIN -4, lifted condensation level 859 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Oakland, CA at 00:00Z on 2014-03-27The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 51 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 60 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
48 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-4 J/kg
Surface CAPE
261 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
859 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
60 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
8 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
51 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
101 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
7.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Oakland, CA (KOAK), 12:00Z

11.6 hours after it, 133 km from the path. March 27, 2014.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Oakland, CA at 12:00Z on 2014-03-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 67 joules per kilogram, CIN -2, lifted condensation level 724 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Oakland, CA at 12:00Z on 2014-03-27The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 67 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 56 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
67 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-2 J/kg
Surface CAPE
154 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
724 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
56 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
10 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
67 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
154 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
7.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Sacramento Metro (SMF), 13 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
22:53 UTC5952150° 10 kt1009.5
23:53 UTC6150160° 8 kt1009.1
00:29 UTC60.848.2210° 10 kt1008.8FC
00:47 UTC60.844.6240° 16 kt211009.1
00:53 UTC6145230° 15 kt211009.1
01:53 UTC5845230° 8 kt1009.8

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

The radar

The Sacramento radar (KDAX), 36 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:22 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
00:20 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD3 Sw NicolausSutter, CA
00:25 UTCTORNADO3 Wsw Pleasant GroveSutter, CABRIEF TORNADO TOUCHDOWN ON PASTURE LAND OF RANCH, NO DAMAGE REPORTED. ESTIMATED RATING EF0. TOUCHDOWN PHOTOGRAPHED BY PUBLIC, RELAYED BY MEDIA. TORNADO DURATION 5 MINUTES
00:45 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD3 W Pleasant GroveSutter, CAFUNNEL CLOUD ABOUT 500 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, SEVERAL MILES SOUTH OF SPOTTER LOCATION AT HIGHWAY 99 AND HOWSLEY ROAD, SPOTTER SL47.
01:02 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD7 Se NicolausSutter, CAFUNNEL CLOUD SOUTHWEST OF PLEASANT GROVE. SPOTTER NUMBER SO47.
01:15 UTCTORNADO2 W RosevillePlacer, CAEF0 TORNADO IN MARKET ST-FILLINGHAM LN-KIRIKTON LN-SYKE CT AREA OF WEST ROSEVILLE BETWEEN 615 PM-620 PM 03/26/2014 ESTIMATED 75-85 MPH WINDS, TORNADO WIDTH 10-20 YARDS, DAMAGE PATH 200-300 YARDS. ROOF DAMAGE, 2 WINDOWS B

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2014 tornado in CaliforniaEvery tornado in California since 1950Warnings in force in California nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of March 26, 2014

4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
March 265:30 PM PDTEF1Glenn, CA0.750
March 265:33 PM PDTEF1Glenn, CA0.950
March 265:45 PM PDTEF1Glenn, CA0.650
March 266:10 PM PDTEF0Placer, CA4.020

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.