Tornado uprooted almond trees, damaged properties, National Weather Service says

    SALIDA, California (KCRA) -- An EF-0 tornado with estimated maximum winds of 76 mph briefly touched down east of Salida in Stanislaus County on Tuesday, uprooting dozens of almond trees, breaking large tree branches and damaging three structures, the National Weather Service confirmed.

The tornado touched down at around 2:13 p.m. and was on the ground for about two minutes. It had a width of about 70 yards and tore a path of 0.9 miles as it moved through several orchards. The tornado caused damage to a covered patio, ripped material off a roof, broke a window, and displaced metal fencing and an outbuilding. It also lifted a large trailer and moved it about 20 feet, NWS said.

"My front window blasted through, and there were broken windows in front of me. I made a run for it," said Walter Roger Cole, a man who was inside his house when the tornado passed through his property.

Cole invited KCRA onto his property to asses the damage. He had to board up three windows he had lost in the storm.

"The neighbor's roof is in my pasture. Some other 16 stock trailers out there got picked up and moved about 30 feet," said Cole.

The NWS did not have a tornado warning in effect in that area at the time. It issued a tornado warning for a period on Tuesday for parts of Yuba and Nevada counties, more than 100 miles north of Salida.

“The radar at the time indicated a storm cell with weak rotation present,” NWS said of Stanislaus County activity. “This is not uncommon and the vast majority of weakly rotating storms do not produce a tornado.”

The NWS says California averages about nine tornadoes a year, with most of them weak and located in the Central Valley.

The last confirmed tornado in the area was Jan. 3 in Tehama County.

Below are viewer photos shared by Jennifer Alves of a funnel cloud in the Salida area on Tuesday afternoon.