Northern California Tornado

Surface weather map for 1:00 p.m. PST February 19, 2013

A low pressure sytem pushed into northern California off of the Pacific yesterday. The push of cold air south of the low triggered generated enough lift and instabilty to trigger thunderstorms in northern California, one of which spawned a small tornado. The tornado touched down about 100 miles north of Sacramento btween the towns of Corning and Red Bluff sometime around 1:30 p.m. PST.

The National Weather Service office in Sacramento sent out a team to survey the damage.  the found damage to a barn roof, and rater the tornado as EF0, with top winds aaournd 74 mph.

Screen capture of a video of the tornado (from the NWS Sacramento FaceBook page)

Roof damage in Gerber, CA from the tornado.