More Stormy Weather Coming To The Bay Area Overnight

The second storm in back-to-back nights of wet and windy weather in the Bay Area is bringing a chance of thunderstorms and even the possibility of tornados in the region late Wednesday night and into Christmas Day on Thursday, a National Weather Service meteorologist said.

The first storm, which arrived late Tuesday and into Wednesday morning, saw strong winds and heavy rain throughout the Bay Area. PG&E officials said as of midday Wednesday that crews had restored power for more than 134,000 customers across its system who were affected by the storm, while 75,000 others remained without power.

More than 24,000 of those PG&E customers still affected were in the Bay Area as of Wednesday afternoon, with more than two-thirds of them in the North Bay, said Tamar Sarkissian, a spokesperson for the utility.

The weather service recorded overnight wind speeds exceeding 100 mph in parts of Marin and Humboldt counties and over 90 mph in Monterey County and elsewhere in Northern California and the Central Coast.

The weather stayed dry for last-minute Christmas shoppers around the Bay Area during the day Wednesday, but weather service meteorologist Brian Garcia said another storm is coming late Wednesday and into Thursday that will bring slightly lower wind speeds but a chance for severe thunderstorms and possible tornados.

“If we rated these things on a scale of 1 to 10, last night was an 8, and tonight is a 7,” Garcia said.
The peak impacts from the storm are expected in the middle of the night, but scattered showers and breezy conditions will remain in the Bay Area through the day on Thursday and into Friday, he said.

“Once we get into the weekend, that’s when things finally start to clear out,” Garcia said.

Sarkissian said PG&E has all of its emergency centers activated and more than 5,500 workers ready to respond to outages during this week’s storms.

People can view PG&E’s outage map or report an outage by visiting https://pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/.