SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Strong winds in San Francisco on Tuesday led to trees falling to the ground, a big rig blowing over and airborne furniture crashing down on the sidewalk.
Video shared with Nexstar’s KRON (above) appears to show a large outdoor couch flying through the air and falling to the ground as a high-rise resident observes from his apartment. The video, filmed by Brandon Au at Main and Folsom streets, showed the couch eventually landing on the sidewalk.
“It almost hit that guy,” Au can be heard saying.
Tuesday’s storm blasted the San Francisco Bay Area with powerful gusts and downpours, pounded Sacramento — the state capital — with intense hail and triggered a rare tornado warning on the Southern California coast.
In downtown San Francisco, pieces of glass fell off a high-rise.
The winds were so strong, a big rig overturned on the Bay Bridge, causing a huge traffic jam and massive delays.
A tornado warning based on radar was issued for the Point Mugu area west of Malibu during the evening after meteorologists warned that conditions were favorable for creating waterspouts that could move ashore. The warning was later canceled and the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office tweeted there was no evidence a tornado touched down.
The wind and rain mayhem from San Francisco Bay south to Monterey Bay on Tuesday was caused by an extraordinary drop in barometric pressure over the eastern Pacific that meteorologists described as “explosive cyclogenisis.”
“Wow. Even by the standards of what has turned out to be one of our most extraordinary winter seasons in a very long time, yesterday … stands out,” the Bay Area weather office wrote.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.