Southern California tornado videos: Twister rips into property

A tornado in Montebello on Wednesday ripped off the roof of one building, damaging several others and uprooting a 1-foot-diameter tree.

A Times photographer snapped wild photos of the scene, which showed extensive damage to buildings and cars in the area.

Nate Cherchian was there and captured the tornado live. In his video, someone observes that the whirlpool “ripped the f- roof off these guys.”

Video shows a tornado tearing through a roof in Montebello on Wednesday, sending debris flying.

“Keep it away from us,” says a man from the off.

In a second video, Sergio Ochoa captured strong winds whipping through a warehouse in Montebello, scattering debris and apparently damaging the building.

Video captured at a warehouse in Montebello during Wednesday’s tornado shows high winds damaging the building and scattering debris.

In the video, an alarm sounds as objects appear to fall from the ceiling.

Although tornadoes are rare in Southern California, they do occur.

“People have a feeling that we don’t get tornadoes in California, but we actually do get them here,” said Carol Smith, a weather forecaster with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. “Seeing a few of them a year is not uncommon.”

See a map of the tornado’s route below.

The national weather service had already determined that a “weak” tornado landed in Carpinteria on Tuesday. It was rated EF0 on a scale of 0 to 5 and had wind speeds of up to 75 mph. The Montebello event, which took place at 11:14 a.m. Wednesday, was stronger at EF1 with winds up to 110 mph.

Times contributors Christian Martinez, Deborah Netburn, and Brennon Dixson contributed to this report.