First Tornado of 2025

This is the first tornado that occurred in the United States in 2025. A wildfire alert camera captured this picture last Friday PM. Here’s a movie of the tornado. It wasn’t in Kansas or Oklahoma or Mississippi. It was in northern California about 11 miles southwest of the town of Shingletown. The nearest town was Manton (population 298). This is about 30 miles southeast of Redding and 135 miles north of Sacramento.

The National Weather Service reported: “BETWEEN 5:18 PM AND 5:21 PM PST A TORNADO WAS REPORTED BY A SPOTTER AND APPEARED ON AREA WEBCAMS AND RADAR. THE TEHAMA COUNTY SHERIFF AND OFFICE OF EMERGENCY SERVICES DID NOT REPORTED ANY DAMAGE. THE TORNADO OCCURRED IN AN UNPOPULATED AREA…”

Here’s a radar image. This was a supercell thunderstorm - a rare event to see a storm like this in northern California.

The storm was also accompanied by pea-sized hail, flooding and at least one “debris flow” (fancy word for mudslide or landslide.

Usually, tornadoes are rated from EF0 (weakest) to EF5 (strongest). This tornado cannot be rated, because there was no damage. There’s nothing there but rocky ground.

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We’ve had a lot of tornadoes lately. From December 28-29, there were 91 tornadoes from Texas to North Carolina. Three of these twisters were rated EF3. There were 4 fatalities (2 in Mississippi and 1 each in Texas and North Carolina) and 17 injuries. The National Weather Service issued a total of 106 tornado warnings during this event.

A total of 146 tornadoes occurred in the U.S. from Dec. 26 - Jan 3.