February 9, 2020 Tornado on San Nicolas Island!

Wow — who would have thought! An upper low was dropping south through SoCal today, with some showers and thunderstorms around during early-to-mid afternoon. Some strong cells dumped 1-2 inches in local areas near Sierra Madre. A semi-continuous line of activity was from about Monte Nido (south of Calabasas) through North Hollywood and Sierra Madre. This line moved southwestward and fizzled rather quickly.

I was out on San Nicolas Island, and watching radar off and on. Towards 4 p.m., some cells developed rather quickly just north and northwest of the island. I just figured that these were garden-variety showers, and continued to watch the Kings and Rangers. I was killing time prior to a very short shift at the airport here, beginning at 4:45 p.m. Some light rain was hitting the windows of the lobby area where I was watching the game, and I was glad that the island was getting a little something. I decided to head back to the room at 4:15 p.m. to put my laptop back and to get ready for my “shift.” I glanced out a lobby window to the north, and right there, about a mile or two away, right in the middle of the window, was a funnel cloud! I kind of freaked out and my mind went from 0 to 100 in 1/8 of a second. I wasn’t 100 percent sure that it was a legitimate tornado-like funnel cloud, but it sure looked good! I made a quick decision to run to the room (just 8 seconds away) to grab my camera. I did have my cell phone right then and there, but if this was going to be really good, I needed my real camera.

The wide 21mm lens was on my camera. That was fine. I ran to the top of an outside stairwell on the northeastern side of the building, and looked to the north. It was still there! The funnel cloud was a good 3/4 of the way to the ground, so it was almost certainly a waterspout in progress. I was not able to see the ocean from here, though, with part of Nicktown in the way. The town is about 450 feet above sea level, and the terrain drops quickly to the shore on the north edge of the town.

I took a few shots with the wide-angle lens, but the funnel cloud was a bit too distant for such a wide angle. Another island denizen named Bill had heard me running through the hallway and joined me on the stairwell to view the spectacle. I asked him to take the camera and to keep shooting stills while I ran back to the room for the 70-200mm zoom lens! This task took about a minute, and I was able to get a few quality zoom shots when I got back to the top of the stairs. This all occurred from about 4:15 to 4:17 p.m. PST.

The funnel looked to be dissipating quite a bit, but it was getting a little closer. With the camera and the long lens, I started running towards the north to try to get a good view over the ocean of this thing. I needed to know if there was an awesome swirl on the water or not! Well, I ran for maybe 45 seconds and got maybe 2/3 of the way to where I needed to be with the view. But then the funnel started to look good again, and it was now over land and just on the other side of the little town, no more than a quarter mile away! The lens that was on now was too “zoomy!” But I took a couple of shots anyway at 70mm (the final pic below). A brief gust of wind came through as the funnel cloud quickly moved to the south and seemingly weakened again. It looked like the show was over (time was now 4:20 p.m.), and I went back to my building, retrieved my wide-angle lens from Bill, and went to my room to let the NWS and the Navy forecasters know what was going on out here. A roll of thunder came out of the west, and soon I was waiting at the curb for my ride to the airport.

I spoke with Bill again at dinner, and he got some fabulous iPhone pics of the tornado as it moved very close to Nicktown! I should have stayed where he was instead of trying to run to the cliff. I had told him at the time of the tornado that there might be more funnel clouds with these storm cells nearby. He said that he watched ANOTHER tornado form (this is while I am in my room) nearby, to the northwest, and this one was much wider and darker and just above the ground with white swirly things going around! And I missed that — ugh! To make matters worse, he said that he just watched that one through the window screen and didn’t get any pictures of it. Man…

This was my first California tornado, my first tornado or waterspout that I have seen from the island (though I might have seen a distant one five years ago—I wasn’t sure at the time), and it was my first February tornado. As far as I know, there was no damage, though Bill said that the second one that he saw looked strong enough to do some significant damage.