Two minutes of tornado terror captured on video

A man who filmed his expletive-laden rant as his home was struck by a terrifying storm says he had no idea what was tearing through his town.

Jamie Mena's incredible footage shows the destructive and short-lived tornado that smashed downtown Los Angeles on Friday.

From his second-storey balcony, Mr Mena dropped expletives as he watched trees almost uprooted in the monster storm that left an expensive clean-up bill.

"What the f---? Oh s---," Mr Mena can be heard saying as the storm hits.

"What the f---, yo? Ay, that whole tree is gone, yo."

Mr Mena told KTLA-5 he did not know what type of storm had struck when he first looked outside.

Another resident, Chris McCall, said he "watched as it took my roof and it just, it sent the roof of our building just over to the next street … like it was a piece of paper."

The tornado peaked at nearly 140 km/h and damaged five homes and several vehicles, The Washington Post reports.

The twister was part of a monster storm that dumped torrents of rain throughout California and whipped up damaging winds from western Washington to the Mexican border, leaving 300,000 homes without power.

The tornado was the first to hit Los Angeles since 2004.