{"id":279371,"date":"2026-04-21T23:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T23:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/279371\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T23:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T23:59:09","slug":"fresno-area-tornado-warning-results-in-brief-school-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/279371\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresno-area tornado warning results in brief school shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A tornado warning in the Central Valley on Tuesday afternoon resulted in noisy cellphone warnings, concerned drivers and a brief lockdown for a Fresno-area school district.<\/p>\n<p>Brian Ochs, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Hanford, said there was a 2-4 percent chance of a tornado forming between the Stockton and Selma areas on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The conditions were due to a low-pressure system moving the area, which brought along stormy weather conditions. A funnel cloud could be seen forming near Highway 99 and Herndon, though it dissipated before touching down.<\/p>\n<p>                                          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_0495.jpg\"   width=\"1140\" height=\"707\" title=\"IMG_0495.jpg\" alt=\"A small tornado funnel, confirmed by the National Weather Service, forms near Highway 99 and Herndon Avenue on Tuesday afternoon, though it didn\u2019t touch down.\"\/>                                                                                    A small tornado funnel, confirmed by the National Weather Service, forms near Highway 99 and Herndon Avenue on Tuesday afternoon, though it didn\u2019t touch down.                                                                                                                                                                        Anthony Galaviz                                                                                        <\/p>\n<p>An emergency alert advised people to seek shelter, and Clovis Unified issued a shelter-in-place order around 2:50 p.m. in response to the alert and that order lasted about 30 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Ochs said there was a report of a tornado touching down in Biola around 2:15 p.m. It\u2019s strength is being investigated, and Ochs said there weren\u2019t any reports of damage.<\/p>\n<p>Ochs said the Central Valley sees maybe one or two tornado reports annually, and the most recent tornado to touch down in Fresno County happened in Clovis in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/profile\/307508201\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"author-thumb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_4053.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" alt=\"Profile Image of Nick Fenley\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n                    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>                <a class=\"author-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/profile\/307508201\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nick Fenley<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                    The Fresno Bee<\/p>\n<p>            Nick Fenley is a reporter covering education, lawsuits, breaking news and more for The Fresno Bee. He\u2019s originally from the Imperial Valley and has been with The Bee since 2025.\n            <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tornado warning in the Central Valley on Tuesday afternoon resulted in noisy cellphone warnings, concerned drivers and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-279371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}