A tornado has damaged the roofs of an apartment complex and two houses in California.The twister, reportedly the first in Los Angeles since 2004, came hot on the heels of a storm system dubbed a Pineapple Express which pounded southern California with heavy rain and high winds.
The small tornado touched down in the city on Friday and was captured on video by a bystander, with footage showing debris flying and damaged buildings.
A water spout, which is like a tornado that occurs over water, was seen on the ocean near Los Angeles International Airport on Friday morning and a second one was spotted around 35 miles to the southeast of the city.
National Weather Service said the tornado was an EFO – the smallest category – and there were no injuries reported.
Meanwhile, the region has been recovering from the Pineapple Express, which has triggered flash floods and mudslides, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of homes and ruining dozens of others.
The Pineapple Express is a low-pressure area that picked up large amounts of moisture from the tropical Pacific near Hawaii and released it over the US west coast as it moved over land.
The Pacific Jet Stream – a fast ribbon of air high up in the atmosphere – has moved southwards across California in recent days and will pull tropical moisture from the Pineapple Express.
The storm has already caused chaos in northern California, Oregon and Washington state – knocking out power to as many as 250,000 people, flooding freeways and toppling trees.
In Oregon, a falling tree killed a homeless man who was sleeping on a trail, and a teenage boy died after a large tree fell on the vehicle in which he was riding.
Throughout the San Francisco Bay Area on Thursday, waves slammed on to waterfronts, ferries were bound to their docks, some flights were grounded and many schools cancelled classes.
