'We've decided to stay,' said another resident Gloria Sitz. 'We gonna stay unless it becomes unsafe,' said Coleman. Those staying cited experience of dealing with big storms, evacuation fatigue, and fear of looting. 'Yeah, we're going to stick around,' said Boulder Creek resident Steven Coleman. 'Things will go down hill in a hurry in the Santa Cruz mountains once we reach the afternoon hours,' the weather service warned.īut many Boulder Creek residents told KPIX 5, they were going to ignore the order and try to ride out the storm which could dump as much as 6 inches of rain on hillsides that have barely begun revegetating from massive blaze that burned 86,500 acres. in parts of San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties. The order goes into effect on Sunday at 8 a.m. The atmospheric river has been elevated to a Category 5, the highest designation on the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Extreme Weather Lab scale and has triggered a litany of severe weather warnings and watches for the Bay Area.Īuthorities have issued an evacuation order for hundreds of homes in and around the CZU Lightning Complex Fire burn scar zone in the Santa Cruz Mountains. That's of course one of the wettest spots.' 'Mt Tamalpais has reported 0.79 inches alone in the last hour with 6 hour values overnight of 3.34 inches. 'If anything, precipitation, is over performing with values already around 1.25 for downtown San Francisco,' weather service forecasters said in the 3:45 a.m. The National Weather Service said the storm's arrival in San Francisco was a little ahead of schedule on Saturday night with steady downpours. A 100-foot tree was leaning dangerously, threatening at least three structures. In San Francisco's Forest Hill neighborhood, fire officials issued a mandatory evacuation order for homes along a block of 9th Avenue. while the lower Great Highway in San Francisco was temporarily closed in both directions between Moraga and Lawton by another tree ripped down by the winds. In San Rafael, a large tree toppled onto a car on Las Pavadas Ave.

'Expect the winds to linger within the main rain band but cut back before the rain begins to let off.'įrom Santa Rosa to San Francisco, work crews were being dispatched to neighborhoods to clear the downed trees and large limbs.

'Peak gusts have been around 70 mph on higher peaks with 40 to 50 mph gusts filtering into lower areas,' the weather service said. as a potent atmospheric river roared into the Bay Area, packing near hurricane force winds and driving rain showers.

The National Weather Service issued a wind advisory for much of the region until 8 p.m.

The ninth rain