The National Weather Service confirmed that the tornado “made short landfall” at an industrial park and warehouse neighborhood in the city of Montebello, and listed the tornado as an EF-1 with estimated peak winds of 110 mph — the fastest tornado to ever hit in the Los Angeles area since 1983
According to city information officer Michael Chee, the “intense microcell” damaged at least 17 buildings, 11 of them severely enough that firefighters deemed them too dangerous.
“There was flying debris and everything!!!tweeted one person who shared video of the storm. The video zooms in on a mass of dark gray clouds engulfing the sky and shrinking to the ground.
The tornado toppled the roof of a building, snapped a light pole, ejected an HVAC unit from the top of a building, shattered skylights, damaged cars and uprooted a healthy pine tree with a 1-foot-wide trunk, the Weather Service said after falling assessed the damage from Wednesday’s Montebello storm.