Northern Arizona residents woke up to widespread tornado warnings on Wednesday. It’s the largest series of tornado alerts to hit the state since 2010.
Those living in northern Arizona witnessed golf-ball sized hail, frequent emergency alerts and torrential downpours.
“There's been an occasional tornado in the state before, but as far as widespread warnings on tornado warnings, yes, this is probably the biggest one since the 2010 event,” said Ryan Bernhart, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
In 2010, multiple tornadoes hit the state in a single day. One touched down in Bellemont, which damaged homes and displaced people.
Bernhart said people who receive either tornado or thunderstorm warnings need to take shelter immediately at the lowest level of their house.
He added that there’s no confirmed reports of a tornado touching down in northern Arizona as of 12 p.m. on Wednesday. But already, there’s some evidence available of a possible twister touching land.
“We have reports of some downed trees in the Wing Mountain area,” he said. “We're not 100% sure if that's due to a tornado, but that's the closest thing we've heard.”
The 2010 tornado event occurred south of Wing Mountain, in the Bellemont area.
Bernhart predicted the current pattern will likely move east.
“This is going to be going out throughout the day and maybe even into the nighttime hours,” he explained. “This low pressure system is not going to fully pull out of here until sometime Thursday evening. So tomorrow the threat might shift a little bit to the east, probably Flagstaff eastward, but the rest of today is going to be very active.”
Tornado events are rare in Arizona, he said, because monsoon storms in the state often lack the characteristics necessary to create a tornado.
“But when we get an upper level trough or storm system coming in from from the Pacific and it interacts with some of the subtropical moisture, that storm system will give us the shear and even some of the rotational shear needed to potentially produce supercells and tornadoes like you would see out in the Great Plains,” Bernhart said.
The National Weather Service has issued a “Tornado Watch” warning for Coconino, Yavapai and Navajo counties in effect until 6 p.m. on Oct. 21.
