Tornado alley it’s not, but as a storm swept across California on Saturday, a rare tornado struck a portion of the state, causing five injuries and flipping cars.
About six miles north of Santa Cruz, in the small city of Scotts Valley, a tornado “threw multiple cars off the road,” according to the city police department’s Facebook page, which also included pictures of overturned cars.
Five people were hurt, none of them seriously, according to Police Capt. Scott Garner. The majority of them were in cars that the tornado threw or moved. According to him, two refused on-scene care, while three were admitted to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Cars were scattered on and around Mount Hermon Road, the city’s major thoroughfare and retail sector, when the tornado made landfall in the afternoon, according to photos released by the Scotts Valley Police Department.
When officers arrived on the scene, they were shocked to discover the aftermath of a tornado, complete with bent utility poles and significant property damage, despite being called to the scene of a multi-vehicle incident, Garner said.
“You can imagine officers responding finding telephone poles at angles,” he stated. “They stumbled into that.”
At 1:40 p.m., the National Weather Service confirmed a touchdown in Scotts Valley with a local storm report. The tornado’s strength is not estimated by it; that is done in person when it is safe to do so.
According to the weather service, California only experiences roughly 11 tornadoes annually, with the northern Central Valley having the highest probability of experiencing one.
Just before six in the morning on Saturday, the weather service had issued a tornado warning for San Francisco; however, it was canceled because there was no tornado organized in the region.
According to Bay Area weather service meteorologist Nicole Sarment, the warning was the first for the city and county of San Francisco at least since accurate weather records began to be kept in 1950.
In a series of Facebook posts, police in Scotts Valley stated that the Mount Hermon Road area will likely stay closed until Sunday morning at the latest while officials evaluate the damage and Pacific Gas & Electric fixes infrastructure and restores power.
According to utility tracker PowerOutage.us, about 8,800 Santa Cruz County utility customers were without power on Saturday night.
According to a statement from forecasters with the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, the tornado developed during a strong Pacific storm that assisted in moving an atmospheric river across the northern part of the state, with a cold frontal rain band bringing up the rear on Saturday.
Floodwaters stranded multiple automobiles in Mill Valley, a tiny city located approximately 14 miles north of San Francisco, according to authorities. The city of Novato, which is roughly 28 miles north of San Francisco, said on social media site X that there was a citywide power outage due to storm-related damage to power lines and utility polls.Residents were advised to “stay home.”
On a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is the strongest, the center assigned the atmospheric river an AR2 to AR3 rating, meaning moderate to strong.
With hail, tearing gusts, and almost two inches of rain in some areas, as well as snow inland, the weather service office in Monterey attributed the unsteady weather linked to the atmospheric river’s tail end to “a rather potent frontal passage.”
The Lake Tahoe and Mammoth Lakes regions of California might receive up to 20 inches of snow between Friday and Saturday, according to the Reno, Nevada, weather service office.
In its forecast discussion on Saturday, the weather service predicted that the Bay Area would see “sunny skies” on Sunday after a night of frigid temperatures that will bottom out close to 30 degrees.
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