Rare Tornado Hits San Francisco Bay Area with More Storms Expected

The stormy weather pattern in the western U.S. is not going to abate anytime soon. A storm early this weekend is being followed by another monster weather maker in this part of the country. Here is a look at the events that unleashed across the region over the weekend as well as what you can expect as the new work week kicks off.

Stormy Weekend Produces Rare Tornado Near San Francisco

It was a messy weekend for much of the West Coast thanks to the continual parade of storms that has been coming in from the Pacific Ocean. The weekend started off with a bang in Northern California with torrential rainfall, mountain snow, and locally damaging winds. While this system is now centered over the northern Rocky Mountains, it did not depart California and the Pacific Northwest without any consequences.

Flooding rainfall was the big story on Saturday for much of the northern and central portions of California. The storm also produced several thunderstorm cells. One of the cells triggered a rare tornado warning for San Francisco County and the northwestern corner of San Mateo County early Saturday morning. It was not long after that a wind gust of 83 mph was clocked at San Francisco International Airport.

Scotts Valley, located just south of the San Francisco Bay Area, got hit particularly hard by this morning line of storms. There were several reports of overturned vehicles and tree damage in this community.

The National Weather Service (NWS) later determined that an EF1 tornado came down to the ground in Scotts Valley at 1:39 pm local time, traveling about 30 yards before lifting up. The bulk of the damage was along the retail district of the community. EF1 tornadoes are distinguished by winds ranging from 86 and 110 mph.

There were reports of at least five non-life-threatening injuries. The NWS field office in Monterey said that the storm was the result of a "potent frontal passage."

In addition to the damage in Scotts Valley, the city of Mill Valley near San Francisco reported that several vehicles were stranded in the rising floodwaters. Residents in nearby Novato were asked to stay home and power outages gripped the entire city.

There were approximately 225,000 customers in the dark during the peak of the outages on Saturday afternoon. This figure had dropped to about 60,000 by Sunday morning.

Gusty conditions were the norm across much of the Golden State stretching from the coastal areas and up into the mountains. The winds ranged between 40 to 60 mph on the coast on Friday and Saturday with some gusts reaching speeds of 80 mph at times.

Another storm system impacted Washington state on Saturday, resulting in heavy rain and gusty winds for the Seattle metro area. While the storm paled in comparison to last month's bomb cyclone in the Emerald City, it was enough to bring down tree branches and knock out power in a highly localized area.