A tornado spotted in Denair, caused minor damage, a flurry of social media activity on Sunday, and 488,000 thousand dollars in damages.

A team from the National Weather Service in Sacramento categorized the tornado as an EF 1.

Dr. T. Theodore Fujita established the Fujita Tornado Damage scale (F-Scale) that estimates the strength of a tornado based on damage surveys, since it is practically impossible to take an accurate measurement of the speed of the tornado winds. National weather services classify the wind of a tornado based on the damages it has made.

They estimated the Denair tornado winds from 86 mph up to 110 mph. The tornado headed east down Zeering road away from town. There were no injuries immediately reported; however, twenty-one homes were damaged after the tornado struck, and uprooted over two hundred trees.

“I was driving through Denair and in a matter of seconds I watched the sky turn black and a giant funnel cloud form,” said Evan Willson.

One home on Zeering Road was put on restriction. The homeowners are allowed to go in it to collect belongings but cannot stay there. Damages include completely destroyed Windows, no electricity, the pump ripped from the ground, and a barn was thrown on top of a car.

Following the tornado, most of Denair did not have power through the evening. It was reinstated to most places by midnight, but many homes had too much structural damage and did not have any power until Monday.

This sort of problem is one of many due to the lack of preparation for the tornado. While this might be surprising for the local community tornadoes aren’t that rare. Dennis Mersereau from the Vane comments;

“Between 1950 and 2013, there were 403 confirmed tornadoes in California, coming out to an average of around 6 or 7 tornadoes per year. The vast majority of them occurred in the Central Valley, but you can see a tight cluster of tornadoes down around Los Angeles. Most of the twisters are weak, with 66% of those surveyed by meteorologists rating either F0 or EF0”

Even though the tornadoes in the area are not as strong, it is still devastating what happened in Denair. Anyone who is willing to help the innocent families that were a victim from this tragedy contact Dennis Findley (209) 669-8560.