National Weather Service deems Carpinteria wind event as tornado
CARPINTERIA, Calif. - The National Weather Service sent a damage survey team to Carpinteria on Wednesday, where crew members determined Tuesday night's wind event to be a tornado.
Our damage survey team has completed the assessment of the tornado in Carpinteria yesterday and have given it an EF0 rating with winds estimated up to 75 mph.
— NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLosAngeles) March 22, 2023
**They are now on their way to Montebello and we will update you on the assessment LATER ON.**https://t.co/te8O8tBoYr
The cleanup from awnings and broken pieces of mobile homes continues in Carpinteria after a major wind event Tuesday.
It happened about 5:45 p.m. about the same time hail and thunder were reported in the area.
The swirling winds began tearing through the Sandpiper Mobile Home Park on Via Real at Cravens.
Debris was flying in a circle in the air.
Several residents say it was a small, quick tornado, but it was not verified.
All residents remained in their spots without help from the American Red Cross.
The National Weather Service checked to see the damage and determined it was a tornado that hit the area.
Some greenhouses next door had damage. They were empty and the property is in transition as part of a sale.
Resident Sal Alvarez said, "you could hear the rooftops and the metal flying up and I think that's what made all the loud noise."
Tonya Martines is the Sandpiper Mobile Home Park General Manager. Walking with the National Weather Service team she said, "anywhere you see a carport, if it doesn't have an awning that went with the wind."
She has documented photos of every site in the park. Just over 200 homes are there.
Martines has walked the area where the damage was reported and marked it off on a map.
In a follow up visit, an assessment was made in person by the National Weather Service with Martines and the Carpinteria-Summerland Fire Protection District, including Chief Greg Fish.
More than 25 homes were damaged.
The older ones were built to comply at the time, and the newer ones faced even tougher construction requirements.
Martines said, "the codes on that are better than most stick homes because they are highly regulated."
Winds were estimated at 75 miles an hour.
The damage was quicker than people could move.
Carpinteria Cemetery District General Manager was in the middle of it all as a resident and the cemetery is the adjacent property.
"Within a few seconds my carport disappeared. I turned to go in the house and a piece of it hit me in the face luckily it was a flat piece and didn't cut me. I went outside and it was gone."
Resident Phil Cummings said it went fast on the ground level and up in the sky."We watched it come flying straight across there. Unbelievable. (Debris was) 150 feet tall just swirling around, pieces of broken plastic," he said.
The cemetery was raked over by the swirling blast of wind.
The path went right through the park and in the cemetery it took downtrees and tossed flowers around the property before going into the nearby avocado grove and up into the foothills.
Damron saw awnings that never came down from the windy flight. "It was amazing that several of these awnings were flown up several hundred feet and landed in the tops of trees. We have an avocado orchard to the north of us and some of these awnings flew a half a mile or more."
The dynamics were extremely rare showing a powerful force from the ground level up.
"Branches broke off and flew over the tree and fell on the other side of the trees," said Damron.
Seeing this first hand helps the weather service understands the power and impact of this weather event.
Meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service in Oxnard, Ariel Cohen said, "right now what we are seeing based on the video evidence and based on what we are dealing with, the damage in a very consolidated and a very narrow path of damage."
The meteorologists observing the tornado scene said, it was important to see the path and the materials that were moved by the wind force. Some of it was very specific, such as "stop" signs that were ripped out.
"Certainly when we have damage that comes from different sources, wind, sometimes it could be in the form of tornadoes. We have to understand what's going on," said Cohen.
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