National Weather Service issues Tornado warning in Yolo, Solano County area
The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning around 6:36 p.m. for Yolo and Solano counties yesterday, Sept. 28. The warning lasted until 7 p.m., following a thunderstorm of hail. Karl Swanberg, a forecaster at the National Weather Service’s Sacramento office, noted that a thunderstorm escalated, concurrent with the tornado.
“The storm that spawned the tornado occurred early in the evening to the north and northwest of Davis,” Swanberg said. “The storm began to intensify just northwest of Woodland and was producing some hail at that time. As the storm tracked towards the southeast, it intensified further. What we’ve seen so far was that the tornado was near and east of Davis.”
The thunderstorm brought the largest hail that the Woodland and Davis area has seen, according to Swanberg.
“There were earlier severe thunderstorm warnings for hail,” Swanberg said. “We had hail up to a one-inch diameter. We did receive a report of one-inch hail, and that was on the highway 113 area between Woodland and Davis. That was the largest hail we had.”
The tornado that occurred in the Davis area, prompting a strong reaction from UC Davis students on Facebook — events poking fun at the situation such as, “blowing the tornado away” and “creating counter tornadoes” were created.
The tornado sparked more conversation on Twitter, where Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, tweeted about the phenomenon in Davis. Swain indicated that the storm was likely a landspout tornado.
“Landspouts do not have condensation funnel and are usually weaker than their fully-formed counterparts, but still: wow!!!” Swain tweeted.
Swanberg said Californians must watch out for storms that may occur in the future.
“Folks have to pay attention to the weather,” Swanberg said. “Last night was a vivid show of lightning and lots of hail. We had some reports of hail covering the ground perhaps two to three inches deep. We do get severe weather in California, especially here in the central valley. It’s not just a midwest phenomenon.”
Written by: Stella Tran — city@theaggie.org
