Sacramento tornadoes-2.21.04

[Khristian Snyder]

Seems some of the storm this afternoon developed a beautifull funnel/tornado near Sacramento. California is the place for storms this year!
These from the Sacramento Bee. Thanks to Mike Smith for pointing this out.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/gallery/proj...btornado/photos (http://www.sacbee.com/content/gallery/projects/febtornado/photos)

[AdrianElizabethParker]

Gorgeous

[Glen Romine]

Khristian - you need to remove these images, as they are from the sacbee.com web site - and you lost the copyright information in copying the images. This is a violation of ST rules - as ST can get in trouble for supporting these images.

Very nice pics though.

Glen

[George Tincher]

Yes, very nice pics. I love white tornadoes! Gorgeous.

But as Glen said, you might wanna edit your post and simply provide a hot link to where the pics are posted.

-George

[John Farley]

Additional pictures are available at:

http://www.news10.net/news/digi-cam/digica...ado-gallery.htm (http://www.news10.net/news/digi-cam/digicam-tornado-gallery.htm)

A news story is at:

http://www.kxtv10.com/storyfull1.asp?id=9380

In addition to the severe weather in Sacramento, the Los Angeles area has been hit hard again this evening, with reports of 50 cars trapped on the 101 freeway between downtown LA and Universal City, and in the nearby mountains, storm totals of 5 - 10 feet of snow predicted, with snowfall rates of 1-3 inches per hour.

[Susan Strom]

What a sight for Sacramento. Pacific storms can bring exciting weather to Sacramento but usually in the form of strong winds that blow pounding rains about all night long, causing damage usually in the form of flooding and large trees downed. Pacific storms can pack quite a punch but are seldom tornadic. I used to look forward to the winter gales when I lived there 11 years ago, although much of the cloud structure is stratiform and fog can form, sometimes lasting for days, between systems.

I don't miss the fog one bit but it is especially fun to see the waves of the "Lost Coast" (north from San Fran to the Oregon state line) get whipped into a fury on the craggy headlands. It's funny how the gales play with the sound of the foghorns too, causing the sound to oscillate. A good Pacific storm thrashing on the landscape is a sight to behold. Fortunately, unlike the California funnel or two, the gales are quite common in the wintertime and are often welcomed for the excitement.

[Bill Hark]

Great images, thanks for posting. Those are some nice funnels. I hope a report is eventually done with the meteorology of this events.

Bill Hark

[Jeff Wear]

The Sacramento TV stations have been showing some impressive footage and digital pictures all evening. Some of the best footage I've seen so far was taken by a local resident of a house directly across the street from him no more than 50 feet away getting a bunch of shingles torn off the roof.

Fortunately most of the damage appears to be very light - most damage to houses was limited to garage doors buckling and shingles off roofs. A few street signs were knocked over, fences blown down, tree limbs down, and car windows blown out as well.....none of the damage I've seen on TV so far looks any higher than F0 - I doubt the winds were any higher than 50-60 mph.

[Colin P.McIntyre]

My sister curently lives in San Jose,,fair distance from the touchdown,
but never the less very interesting.

[Sam Sagnella]

Survey results are in for the STO tornadoes; two (possibly a third) have been confirmed.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/STO/PNSSTO.0502230046

[Khristian Snyder]

Thanks for the link. Only an high end F0 but very cool looking.

[Sam Sagnella]

Just came across some videos from Sacramento news stations; linked below.

http://www.kxtv.com/storyfull1.asp?id=9386 KXTV - Vid link @ bottom

http://www.thekcrachannel.com/video/421869...694/detail.html (http://www.thekcrachannel.com/video/4218694/detail.html) KCRA

http://kpix.dayport.com/launcher/4015/?tf=...ideo_player.tpl (http://kpix.dayport.com/launcher/4015/?tf=video_player.tpl) CBS 5 in SanFran

If I find more, I'll post them.

[Jeff Wear]

Here are some more photos of the tornado.....

http://tornado.sfsu.edu/SacTornado/SacTornado.html

and here are some weather maps from the afternoon of the tornado.....

http://tornado.sfsu.edu/SacTornado/Page1.html

[Susan Strom]

That's actually kind of a pretty tornado with good visibility.