Preliminary reports from Tuesday's storm included one funnel cloud, one tornado, and severe thunderstorms, but now, a second tornado has been confirmed, thanks to a video sent into Action News from a viewer. The second twister was spotted near Danley Road in Colusa, just after 2pm, Tuesday afternoon. After reviewing the tape, Dan Keeton from the National Weather Service confirmed the event as an EF0 tornado. "Based on the video, and evidence we received from the reports that we saw, we can easily conclude that we had what we refer to as a land spout tornado. Than means it was not associated with any sort of strong thunderstorm activity."
Since the tornado was not associated with a thunderstorm, like the twister that touched down in Gerber, it was harder for officials to discover, and confirm. Which is why Keeton says technology is key in confirming these events. "In the olden days you had to rely on ground troops that you set up ahead of time. Now, with social media, it's pretty easy to find things out after they've occurred. Ya know, a video was brought to our attention, we looked at the radar, and could go ahead, and make the call."
The next step in confirming a tornado did touch down, would be a damage assessment, but since this twister was in a field, the experts had to go without. "Unless we have tree's or some sort of pattern of debris, or something, there's not much point in actually trying to piece it together. You can't really see anything," according to Keeton.
The Colusa twister was officially rated as an EF0 tornado, the weakest of it's kind, but Keeton says, there's really no such thing as a weak tornado. "Had this storm moved over an area, like a house, or a barn, or a field, or any place that's congested with people, it would have produced really significant damage."
