.jpg)
.jpg)
Videos posted to social media on Wednesday, Oct. 11 allowed the National Weather Service of Portland to confirm a brief tornado touched down in La Center.
The majority of damage included blown over trash cans and a blown over basketball hoop, but La Center resident Mark Ketsdever’s property took the brunt of the storm.
Ketsdever explained in a message to The Reflector that two-thirds of his back fence was blown over, several spots on his roof had shingles bent or are now gone and some metal chairs on the back deck were blown over the railing and into the yard 20 feet.
“The tornado was reported on social media, that’s how we first got it,” NWS Portland meteorologist Miles Higa said. “But you know, looking back at radar, there was some rotation in the higher part of the shower or thunderstorm that moved through. So the report that we got was it probably lasted about a minute.”
In northwest Oregon and southwest Washington since 1950, there have been 23 confirmed tornados in October, the most of any month.
“... We get more tornadoes in the fall and winter season than in the middle of the summer,” Higa said.
He explained a tornado in the fall is more likely to happen when a low pressure system off the coast with westerly winds combines with a favorable southeast wind pattern in the Willamette Valley.
“So, like in this recent case we had some thunderstorms and some heavy showers, and that combined with the favorable winds [which] allowed the quick spin up of a tornado,” Higa added.
Based on the lack of damage and video of the tornado, the NWS determined the tornado to be in the lower wind speed range of an EF-0 tornado, which has wind speeds ranging from 65-85 mph.
To watch a video of the tornado from ilani Casino, visit
tinyurl.com/52dhwuvx.
