A tornado touched down in the town of Scotts Valley on Dec. 14, as San Francisco issues first-ever tornado warning
Water from the San Francisco Bay spills onto the Embarcadero as a result of high tides and storm-driven waves on Dec. 14, 2024
Several people have been injured and hospitalized after a tornado touched down in coastal Santa Cruz County in northern California.
A rare tornado touched down in the small town of Scotts Valley — located about 70 miles away from San Francisco — around 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 14, according to reports from local Monterey outlet KION-TV, the Associated Press and CBS Bay Area.
The National Weather Service (NWS) classified the tornado as EF1, a weaker form of tornado, according to KION-TV. Scotts Valley police wrote in a Facebook post that power lines were pushed down and cars were overturned when the tornado touched down outside of a Target.
A NWS preliminary damage survey report posted to X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday showed the tornado lasted about five minutes, traveling southeast for about a quarter mile. It was about 30 yards wide, and winds were estimated to have peaked at about 90 miles per hour, the agency said.
Photos shared by the Scotts Valley Police Department showed at least three vehicles on their hood or side with broken windshields as tree branches and power lines littered the ground.
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“A wide range of damage was observed, including downed trees, power poles and trees stripped of branches,” the NWS said.
Police also shared that the town’s electric provider PG&E worked to restore power overnight, and previously closed streets have since reopened.
The Scotts Valley Fire Protection District told CBS News that between four and five people were injured in the tornado, with all of them sustaining either minor or moderate injuries. Two of those people were hospitalized, the fire district added.
One person who was injured was a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection battalion chief on duty, according to the AP. Cal Fire told CBS that his vehicle was flipped over, and he is expected to recover.
High tides and rough waves spill into San Francisco on Dec. 14, 2024
Northern California has experienced a number of severe weather events over the weekend linked to the powerful storm that passed through the region on Friday night.
The NWS issued its first-ever tornado warning in San Francisco on Saturday morning before 6 a.m., according to CBS, although a tornado there never materialized.
Several smaller cities in the area also experienced power outages, including the city of Novato, and I-580 closed near San Joaquin and Alameda counties after a big rig truck crashed into several other vehicles, CBS reported.
The NWS reported that San Francisco has not seen a tornado since 2005, per AP.
“This was the first-ever warning for a possible tornado in San Francisco. I would guess there wasn’t a clear signature on radar for a warning in 2005,” Roger Gass, a meteorologist in the Weather Service based out of Monterey, told the AP.
Meteorologist Dalton Behringer also recommended that San Francisco and Bay Area residents take as much cover as possible in the event of a tornado, although many homes in the area typically do not have basements.
“The biggest thing that we tell people in the city is to put as many walls between you and the outside as possible,” Behringer told the AP.
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