And we're staying on top of that news out of Boyle Heights, the National Weather Service confirming now that a tornado has touched down there. Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining us again. I'm Mekahlo Medina and I'm Lolita Lopez. Within the last 15 minutes we learned that it's an EF zero tornado, the lowest on the rating system. It touched down around 10 on Christmas morning. We want to show you some surveillance video that shows the moments that the winds blew through the strip mall.
Even though it was one of the lowest rating or the lowest rating. 80 mile an hour winds, you can see the glass windows and doors of these businesses shattering their debris flying through the air. Here's another look at a surveillance video from a nearby gas station. The wind so strong here that a man, if you see that close, he struggles to stand up and even be able to pump gas.
We have live team coverage right now on this tornado. We begin at that strip mall where you saw some of the worst damage there for that. Let's head over to Darsha Philips. Hey there guys.
Yeah, we're here on Whittier and Lorena. And as you mentioned, a team of investigators with the National Weather Service. They were here just about an hour ago looking at the scene. And they have determined that, in fact, a tornado did touch down here on Christmas Day around 10:00. We're going to show you some of that surveillance video again. Take a look at it. This is from a restaurant here, Mariscos Tampico. In the video, you can see the winds pick up and blow over a sign and a bunch of debris barrels toward the restaurant. Two windows were broken by the debris. No customers were inside, but the owner and his wife were preparing to open. And as you can imagine, it was extremely frightening for them. They thankfully were not injured. Now we do have some video from the gas station across the street. In this video, you can see the winds pick up and debris fly across Lorena Street toward that restaurant. Mariscos Tampico again. National Weather Service confirming this, in fact, was a tornado that touched down yesterday, categorizing it as an EF zero.
So very weak tornado with wind speeds anywhere from 65mph to 85mph. Now, here is Doctor Ariel Cohen with the National Weather Service. We have determined that this is indeed a tornado that occurred once again, a tornado, a weak tornado on the Enhanced Fujita scale. I'll get into some more details in a moment that had affected this part of Boyle Heights, it was definitely a scary experience.
It happened all of a sudden. We do usually get strong winds in the area, but this one was definitely different. In a couple of seconds, we just heard what seemed like a train coming at us with a lot of metal. When we looked outside, we saw what looked like just like a circular motion and a lot of metal pieces flying around.
Obviously very scary for the folks who saw that this is one of just a handful of tornadoes that have occurred in the LA area over the last few years. Most recently, we saw a tornado touched down in the Pico Rivera neighborhood in March of 2025. Again, back here live National Weather Service confirming that an EF zero tornado did touch down here in Boyle Heights did cause some minor damage to the businesses here and some homes. We'll have much more on this.
And again, the good news is no one was injured. Mekahlo Lolita. We'll send it back to you. Absolutely. Darsha. Thank you so much for that. Now, NBC 4's Keenan Willard picks up the rest of our team coverage. You're in that neighborhood. We've been talking to you since. Homeowners looking at the damage that they had there. Yeah, that's right. You guys just heard Darsha talking about that intersection where the businesses are.
We're right around the corner here on Lee Street, and you can see the most heavily affected home behind us belongs to Francisco Gonzalez. And you can see what the roof looks like. A lot of tarp there, a ton of tiles thrown off, shingles thrown off of the roof, off to the side, into the front walk. By our count, there at least three homes. We've talked to neighbors here who have had their homes get impacted.
One of them, Gonzalez, described actually seeing a small and quick moving tornado yesterday morning when this storm actually broke out here and affected this Lee Street area. We also talked to his next door neighbor, who's Bobby Torres. He talked about hearing it outside, coming out and seeing some significant damage to the back of his home and the neighbors, and also just the concern that comes with experiencing a tornado out of nowhere in Southern California. That kind of just doesn't sit on the right spot like that. Just thinking about that, because I didn't expect that. I thought it was just going to be rains and just really winds and gusts. And even for our dog, I was kind of like nervous just to keep an eye on him because I was like, dude, I just hear him, like always barking. But it was just like pounding. And after hearing the slam and all that, that was just like a wake up call. I was like, I got to get out there and go check and make sure there's nothing broken or anything like that, and I'm.
Like, guys, look who's coming in here. This is Los Angeles City Fire personnel. We just saw two cars pull up here. We've seen some people from the mayor's office trying to get in touch with some of the homeowners who are actually affected here, at least. Again, those three houses that we've been able to identify here on Lee Street in Boyle Heights. So they're getting out now, going to take their own survey of some of the damage. We're also expecting to see some investigators from the National Weather Service as they keep looking into what is now a confirmed tornado here in Boyle Heights. For the moment, though, from Boyle Heights. Keenan Willard NBC 4 News. Keenan, thanks so much. The the weakest of the weakest tornado, but certainly something that freaked out a lot of neighbors as well. And Belen, you know what these tornadoes look like. We've seen them certainly in our area over the course of several years. Right. That's right.
Uncommon but not rare. We are used to seeing these weak tornadoes. And here is a look at some of the information. Again a confirmed tornado on the rating of the Enhanced Fujita scale. It is at the lowest, but it did cause a lot of damage yesterday in Boyle Heights around 1010 in the morning. That's Christmas morning. Peak winds at 80mph. The path length and duration, it was about a quarter of a mile and it was about 30 yards wide. Right now, we still have some activity out there and still the potential for more rain and flooding conditions. The flood watch has been lifted over Orange County and the Inland Empire, but it remains in effect a little bit longer over Ventura and LA County.
We have had some just outstanding rainfall reports this week, up to 17in in Ventura County mountains for the downtown area. We set records. We set a lot of rainfall records this week, and that moisture continues to stream in from the southwest. Of course, it doesn't look like what it did earlier this week, but we still have some rain that is hugging the coastline. Some pockets of moderate rain in the Inglewood area, Downey and even a little bit of snow that's falling in the mountains right now. So at the tippy tops near the resort, we could see a few inches of snow. So here we are, looking at the timing for the rest of the afternoon and evening. And the storm is winding down. Here we are at, looking at much drier conditions over Ventura and L.A. County. With that rain still lingering over in the IE and Orange County. But this evening it's out of here.
And by tomorrow we're back to the sunshine with the cool temperatures continuing. But I'm already looking at that next chance of rain. And let me just say, make sure you get an umbrella ready for New Year's Eve. The details ahead. I'll share what I know. Guys, over to you and thanks so much. From a tornado to an avalanche to ski, patrollers are now in the hospital after being caught in an avalanche over at Mammoth Mountain. Operations are suspended at the resort. That slide apparently struck early this morning while patrol crews were working to reduce avalanches. We talked to an expert on how this dangerous work can actually cause these avalanches. Anytime there's snow on the ground, avalanches are possible, Steve Mesa, director of the Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center, says especially with the heavy snowfall we've had over the last several days, mammoth itself hit hard with more than five feet of snow. Since Christmas Eve. We saw over 50in of snow here in mammoth over the last three days, and anytime it's snowing that hard and that much snow in that short amount of time, the avalanches become very likely, May says. Ski patrols at mammoth conducted avalanche mitigation work, which are strategic tasks that sometimes trigger slides meant to make the mountain safer for skiers later in the day. Mammoth resort officials say the patrol was doing just that when the snow released unexpectedly. The pair on patrol were rescued and immediately taken to Mammoth Hospital, one patroller sustaining serious injuries and is being transported out of the area for further care. Resort officials say the second patroller is being evaluated with possible broken bones. We're at high danger right now, today and have been for the last two days, and that threat still remains high right now as the storm effects continue to settle on the Sierra Nevada Macy urging people in the area to always have a shovel, a beacon and a probe. Those are basic avalanche rescue kits with them. If they're in that area. Mammoth mountain officials say they'll continue to monitor snow conditions and will reopen the resort only when it's safe to do so. We want to take you some new video right now. Coming into our newsroom. We have seen several swift water rescues during this latest storm. Our crews actually followed firefighters as they tried to look for a woman who had been reported to have been swept away in the LA River. Now you can track this storm. Any rain, snow, all types of weather at any time with our NBCLA app. ONE MORE VIDEO ይህ የፈጣሪ ቁጣ ይሆን? | በአሜሪካ ካሊፎርንያ የተከሰተው የጎርፍ ውርጅብኝ- $200M Damage- Chaos in California, USA[ዘይገርም - zeygerim Description ሰላም፣ ይህ ዘይገርም የተሰኘው ቻናላችን ነው። አስገራሚ፣ ድንቅ እና ከተለመደው ወጣ ያሉ ነገሮች ሲከሰቱ ሳቢ በሆነ አቀራረብ ወደናንተ እንደርሳለን Amharic for Hello, this is our channel called Zeygerim. We bring you interesting stories about amazing, wonderful, and unusual things that happen. From USA since March 2024]
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