National Weather Service confirms tornado hit Oxnard during powerful atmospheric river storm
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Two mobile home parks in Oxnard were hit by a weak tornado that tore roofs off homes and ripped power cables to the ground during a powerful atmospheric river storm Thursday afternoon, the National Weather Service said.
A dozen carports, as well as the siding, rain gutters, awning or roofs of several homes in the Ocean Aire Mobile Homes Estates and Country Club Mobile Home Estates were hit by 60-mph wind gusts shortly after 3:30 p.m on Thursday, the city of Oxnard said in a statement.
The damage took place while wide swaths of Ventura and Los Angeles counties were under flash flood and severe thunderstorm warnings amid a powerful atmospheric river storm.
“The National Weather Service damage assessment team has confirmed a weak tornado occurred,” the agency said in a statement Friday. “The tornado tracked from the Country Club Mobile Estates to Ocean-Aire Mobile Estates in south Oxnard.”
Country Club Mobile Home Estates on Butler Road provides a valuable source of affordable housing for families and seniors.
No injuries were reported at the park, but the area lost power Thursday evening, according to the Ventura County Star.
Meteorologist John Dumas said the National Weather Service sent a team to investigate the damage Friday morning to determine whether there was indeed a weak tornado at the park.
Team members looked at the damage to determine the intensity of the wind speed that rocked the roofs and carports.
They observed loss of shingles and roof coverings, many destroyed metal porch roofs and carports, toppled fences and two shattered windows.
Debris was widespread across a significant portion of the community and officials said several large branches broke off nearby trees across Highway 1, adjacent to the mobile home parks.
Evidence of a tornado, Dumas said, would include items and debris blown to the north and south of the location where it hit.
“That tells us a tornado with circular motion went through, as opposed to just a kind of wall of wind pushed ahead at the front of a snow blower,” he said.
Officials determined that the tornado formed just south of Oxnard College around East Bard Road and moved northeast before dissipating between South Oxnard Boulevard and East Channel Islands Boulevard.
Meteorologist Carol Smith said it was likely a weak tornado based on the weather patterns seen on radar and the fact that roofs were ripped off buildings, which typically doesn’t happen from strong winds alone.
“Sometimes when you have really strong [wind] uplift and there’s strong thunderstorms or a collection of storms, you can get this [wind] rotation,” she said, describing how the tornado may have formed.
The weather service had warned about the possibility of tornadoes when issuing a severe thunderstorm warning for L.A. County on Thursday afternoon.
Mobile home parks have been hard hit during the extreme weather events Southern California has experienced this year.
The Palisades fire burned more than 300 mobile homes. Residents worry they will not be able to return.
More than 300 mobile homes were destroyed in the Palisades fire in January, which wiped out a rare pocket of affordable housing by the beach in Pacific Palisades.
Many former residents of the Palisades Bowl Mobile Estates and Tahitian Terrace mobile home park are now struggling to find housing within their budgets.
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