A tornado touched down in Kings County on Saturday afternoon, the second tornado to hit Central California in two days.
The tornado struck the south end of Corcoran around 4:37 p.m., said meteorologist Carlos Molina of the National Weather Service's Hanford office. He said the tornado moved east and then dissipated by the time it reached U.S. Route 99.
The hurricane comes less than a day after a funnel cloud briefly touched down in Madera County, about 30 minutes north of Fresno. The tornado touched down near an elementary school, forcing students to take shelter in the cafeteria, ABC7 reported.
“This is the first time I've seen two tornadoes in a row,” Molina said, noting that the humidity in the area caused by a winter storm had provided ideal conditions for such an event.
“Typically, for central California, we typically see one or maybe two hurricanes across our region between March and April,” he said.
The back-to-back hurricanes come less than a month after two hurricanes touched down within a minute of each other along the San Luis Obispo County coast.
Officials said at the time that they were the first tornadoes to hit San Luis Obispo County since 2004 and the strongest since before 1950 with winds of 95 mph.
Elsewhere in the state, a blizzard hit the Sierra Nevada on Saturday, with wind gusts reaching 190 mph and nearly 2 feet of snow falling in some places. A 75-mile stretch of Interstate 80 was closed and ski resorts were forced to close amid the dangerous conditions.
