Overview
- The National Weather Service’s San Diego office has sent a damage-survey team to the San Clemente Municipal Golf Course to investigate reports that strong storm winds may have produced a tornado; confirmation is pending.
- Local photos and videos show a narrow swath of snapped and uprooted trees across the golf course and scattered debris, and officials say there were no immediate reports of injuries.
- The suspected event followed a strong isolated thunderstorm that moved over the Norte Fire burn scar, a condition meteorologists flagged as potentially altering storm behavior.
- Forecasters had warned this week that a powerful El Niño system would bring the season’s first major storms and increase the chance of heavy rain and unusual severe-weather events in Southern California.
- NWS damage findings will determine whether a tornado touched down, the storm’s path and strength, and whether the event raises new risks for residents still recovering from recent fires and coastal erosion.