Southern California Meteorologists (People Who Are Paid To Track Weather) Were Unsure If A Tornado Struck Down In Los Angeles Wednesday Morning
On Wednesday morning, a "potential" tornado ripped through the town of Montebello causing major damage, but thankfully no deaths or injuries. This story might be a new low even for SoCal meteorologists.
Just look at the headlines from the clips above. "Potential", "possible", "possible". That's just a sample too. I saw a clip of one "weather expert" slip saying it was a tornado before quickly backtracking. I should be writing about how crazy it is that there was a tornado in LA, but here I am more befuddled at everyone seemingly worried about getting hit with a defam suit from a piddly F-0.
Imagine a meteorologist in the mid-west trying to pull "well maybe" a tornado hit and keeping their job? Welcome to California. Quite frankly, no meteorologist out here seems to have the specialized expertise in anything outside of the following SoCal weather note card options:
- Nice outside today
- Big rain on the way! (light drizzle)
- Santa Ana winds (also nice out)
Anyone that lives out here can attest it's been an absolutely crazy rain season, so why not add some (alleged) tornados to the party. Mammoth has already gotten some 55 feet of snow, Big Bear was completely closed off from the world a couple weeks ago, and it's been raining so often that people on the 405 are actually starting to learn how to drive in it. As absurd as these statements might sound, only the third one was made up.
But I can't get over how every supposed "weather" outlet has been shy to proclaiming this weather event as a confirmed tornado. I get the fact that no one wants to be sued, but we might be OK keeping the "alleged" card in our pocket here. I doubt OJ even has any interest in chiming in on Twitter with his opinion on who did all of this and I don't expect the tornado to come out with an "If I did do it" book anytime soon.
Maybe it's because I'm from the mid-west and I know what I'm looking at, but even Brick would be able to answer what's in the tweet below. I'd bet $100 on the first three words out of his mouth if you asked him what he loved the most while looking at this.
"I. Love. Tornado".
But have no fear because we have our best people on it to figure out for sure who the culprit was. From the LA Times…
The weather service is sending a survey team to Montebello to examine the scene and determine whether a tornado touched down, Stewart said.
I'd love to hear more about their methodology. Are they going to interview key eye witnesses? Will a sketch artist be contracted? I can't wait for them to get excited about finding the culprit's trail until becoming completely confounded when it all of the sudden just ends. Almost like the trail just went… into thin air.
The good news is this tornado was certainly of the landspout genus making it pretty much like a Division III basketball team compared to a F-5 variety 1-seed in the NCAA tournament. But that's still a tornado my friends. And had this been a real tornado, practically everyone would have been sucked into it while taking a video with their phone based on what I've seen online. Everyone was out there getting a good shot. Google Maps directions from Montebello to LAX would have shown a blue line spinning in circles before being flung 25 miles towards the airport with a trip ETA of 13 seconds. We'd never complain about stand still traffic again.
Anyway, it's kinda hard to "trust the experts" on this one when they are also the ones saying they are "doing their own research". But I hope they are able to catch the culprit (whoever/whatever that might be) and, in California style, promptly release it. I'm rooting hard for them here. I believe in them. And when it's all over, maybe the heroes in the meteorology lab will throw a big party to celebrate.
- Jeffro