10:18 PM PDT on Thursday, May 27, 2004

By kgw.com, NWCN and AP Staff

Dark strom clouds hang over Clark County at the time the tornado was reported. (KGW Sky 8 Photo)

LA CENTER, Wash. – A tornado struck 2 miles northeast of La Center on Thursday, causing some mild damage, the National Weather Service and witnesses said.

The small Clark County twister, which touched down briefly about 4:30 p.m. halfway between Vancouver and Longview, was one of two tornados occuring Thursday afternoon in southwestern Washington as heavy rain showers rolled through the region.

Wanda Likens, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Portland, said there were no injuries, but she said the woman who initially reported the La Center tornado said her horses were spooked and didn't want to go back to the barn.

"(I saw) a tunnel of wind and leaves and trees coming towards me, so I jumped back in the shop," said Brandon Williamson, another eyewitness. "It was just a big funnel of wind."

Weather service reports and observations by KGW staff members indicated the La Center tornado tore off part of a barn roof and damaged numerous trees -- tearing some out of the ground by their roots. The weather service said there were also extensive reports of downed tree branches throughout a nearly one-mile area that the tornado skipped along.

One of numerous uprooted trees near La Center, Wash., where a tornado occured. (KGW Photo)

"I looked out and I could see all the trees twirling around. The one right here broke," observed Wyatt Williamson. "The trees just looked horizontal. Laying down on their sides, and there were two or three uprooted out of the ground."

Resident Sonya Wood e-mailed kgw.com saying that the twister had first been spotted on the ground near La Center High School. Fortunately, the school was not damaged.

Meantime, another small tornado took the roof off of a barn, tore up some fencing and scattered some lumber near Tenino in Thurston County.

That tornado touched down shortly after 3 p.m., about four miles southwest of Tenino.

"My wife comes over, hollering, 'The barn's gone!'" Marv Dupper said, pointing toward crumpled strips of metal roofing — one of them high up in a tree.

He said a piece of lumber tossed by the twister punctured the roof of a building on his property.

Duane Wheeler said a sound he likened to an airliner in trouble brought him to the front door of his home about 200 yards from the barn.

Wheeler said he saw a gray mass, 75 to 100 yards across moving through his yard.

"I also saw a lot of metal raining out of the sky," he said. "It just looked like the roof of this building exploded."

Ricky Johansen, another Tenino-area resident, offered this description: "It looked like a giant fist came down from the sky and pulverized this shed. It was like a hammer. I was afraid it was going to come back and get me."

Meteorologist Jeff Rood of the National Weather Service in Seattle said the Tenino tornado was probably on the ground for a minute or two, traveling the distance of roughly a quarter mile.

Originally described as a funnel cloud, it was classified as a weak tornado because it touched down, the weather service said.

Nobody was injured, but authorities on the scene said the debris from the barn was spread over a quarter mile radius; the tornado left crumpled strips of metal roofing scattered around, and a heavy metal fence gate lying on the ground.

KING This barn in Tenino was hit by the funnel cloud.

Kathy Estes, a Thurston County Emergency Management official, said the tornado came out of nowhere.

"There was no forecast. There was no warning," she told NWCN. "It was just an instantaneous event here."

Although the state of Washington averages less than two tornadoes a year, these were the fourth and fifth tornadoes recorded in the state this year.

Rood said he doesn't know the reason for the number of tornadoes. He said it's just the state of Washington's year.

A tornado touched down in Spokane last Friday during a storm that also brought lightning, hail and heavy rain to northeast Washington.

The five tornadoes have been reported during the past four weeks. The first of this year occured April 27 near Sumas, in northwestern Washington; the second happened in central Washington's East Wenatchee on May 19.

Thursday's twisters that struck in SW Washington occured as other nearby areas were being hit with torrential rains. In Portland, an inch of rain falling in about an hour caused the city's combined sewer and runoff system to overflow, throwing sewage into the Willamette River.