Latest storm pounds San Francisco Bay Area with fierce winds, heavy rain

SAN FRANCISCO — For a third straight Tuesday, a strong storm with dangerous gusts of up to 45 miles per hour and torrential rain plowed into the Bay Area, ready to ravage saturated soil and weakened tree roots.

So far this month, Tuesdays have been days of the first alarm weather. The storm two weeks ago left 300,000 customers in the area with electricity. Last week’s storm downed hundreds of trees and killed five.

In the Santa Cruz Mountains, Ralph Ditullio, owner of Nonno’s Restaurant in Redwood Estates, wants to put an end to the blustery Tuesday parade.

“The last three Mondays were beautiful when we closed. And then I come into work on Tuesday and I have power for a couple of hours and then it shuts off when the new storm hits,” Ditullio said. “Well, if you’re up there listening [God]could you please postpone the storms?”

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Although this week’s storm was not expected to be as intense as its predecessors, it will still pack a punch. The National Weather Service has issued a Bay Area wind advisory that will remain in effect through 8 p.m

“The coastal counties of Sonoma and Marin have experienced steady gusts of between 45 and 55 miles per hour for the past few hours, with maximum wind gusts in excess of 70 miles per hour over the higher ground,” the Weather Service said at 9:25 a.m. “These winds are now beginning to impact the Bay Area proper, with the strongest winds currently hitting over the highest terrain as well.

“However, we are seeing some 45+ mph gusts hitting East Bay communities, including Oakland and Richmond. Given the saturated soils and these winds, trees will fall and potentially destroy power lines.”

San Francisco Fire warned that at 350 mission a 30th floor window was shattered by high winds.

“No glass fell down, just cracked and damaged and secured,” the fire department tweeted.

Some SF Muni buses were diverted due to fire service activity as Mission Street between Beale and Fremont was closed.

KPIX meteorologist Mary Lee took to Twitter Tuesday morning to report early confirmed maximum wind gusts, including 67 mph at Los Gatos, 64 mph at Mt. St. Helena and 52 mph at Oakland Airport.

Flood warnings were also issued for the North and East Bays until late morning or midday due to flooding in towns and small streams caused by excessive rainfall and possible flooding on roads and highways. Residents are asked to be aware of their surroundings and not drive into standing water.

On Tuesday afternoon, two of the notices issued were extended. One for a broad area of ​​Contra Costa County, stretching from north of Concord to south of Fremont, was scheduled to expire at 4:00 p.m. Another recommendation for an interior Sonoma County area was moved to 8:30 p.m. There Colgan Creek near Sebastopol and Green Valley Creek on Martinelli Road were at a minor flood stage.

Additionally, Mark West Creek rose near Mirabel Heights and is expected to enter the monitoring phase later Tuesday afternoon.

In South San Francisco, CHP reported that just before 10:30 a.m., a fallen tree blocked the right and middle lanes of southbound I-280 on Avalon Drive. The tree was cleared and all lanes reopened around 11:45 a.m

PG&E said it has thousands of crew members on site to prepare for Tuesday’s storm, with a focus on the South Bay and Peninsula, as that’s where the most damage was expected.

As of Tuesday midday, 6,074 customers were without power, although the utility didn’t say what percentage of those outages were ongoing and had been caused by last week’s storm.

The current outages have been concentrated in the East Bay, with more than 3,000; The North Bay had 1,470 and the South Bay 976 outages. The Peninsula saw 578 outages, while San Francisco saw just a few dozen customers without power.

The strong winds will combine with the saturated soils and weakened trees in a deadly combination. So far this year, falling trees in the Bay Area have killed six people and damaged or destroyed dozens of homes and vehicles.

“Having an aging older structure that now has a shrinking root system due to drought and suddenly being weighed down by rain and wind overloading it with all this extra weight on a debilitating structure,” says Remy Hummer of Arborist Now Inc., describing KPIX’s dangerous conditions. “Then you start to see trees tumble and fall.”

The storm will also bring heavy downpours. The weather earlier Tuesday morning issued a short-lived flood warning for Marin County after “Doppler radar indicated heavy rain.”

In the Sierra, the storm will add to the epic amounts of snow that have already fallen. Winter storm warnings apply to heavy snowfall and high winds

“Very heavy snowfall is forecast for higher elevations of the Coast Range and Sierra, with possible total heights of 1 to 4 feet,” meteorologists warned.