Meteorologists baffled by bizarre isolated winds that whip San Francisco Bay Area

SF Gate ^ | 9/11/17 | Amy Graff

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Meteorologists are baffled by strong wind gusts that ripped through concentrated pockets of the Bay Area early Monday morning, while other areas remained completely still. The National Weather Service reports that a gust of 54 mph roared through Pebble Beach at 2:30 a.m., while only 10 minutes away in Monterey conditions remained completely calm.

"We had a very unusual event happen overnight," says Charles Bell, a meteorologist with the NWS Bay Area. "We had isolated strong periods of winds. It's really remarkable. Usually wind storms are more widespread, while this wind occurred in concentrated pockets."

The first gusts roared through Pebble Beach and the southwesterly winds traveled north reaching up to 40 mph in Santa Cruz, up to 37 mph in Los Gatos and at the San Jose Airport.

The weather service recorded the last gust at 3:30 a.m.; it was a 35 mph wind at the Golden Gate Bridge. The winds knocked down trees and power lines. The event lasted about two hours.

The windy conditions weren't in the forecast and came as a surprise to Bay Area residents. "There was no indication of this happening today," Bell says. "We have computer models that are very high resolution that pick up a lot of features in the atmosphere and they didn't detect it. We're going to look through the data to find out what caused it." "This is a very unusual situation. And one we wish we'd given people more of a heads-up on. It definitely was not forecast." Bell says one of the office's senior scientists will be analyzing data today to determine the source of the wind. "One idea that's been kicked around is there's a storm swell to the south and potentially some energy came up from that," he says.

[Paladin2]

Maybe draining the swamp in DC would affect levels in the Chesapeake eventually.

[Freedom56v2]

I love Carmel :)

[dadfly]

yup. unpredicted high winds last night in our neighborhood.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

"Galloping Gertie" -- the old Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Vortex shedding was one of the causes proposed for the failure of the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940, but was rejected because the frequency of the vortex shedding did not match that of the bridge. The bridge actually failed by aeroelastic flutter.

"Flutter" is probably a San Fran phenomenon, too.

[RayChuang88]

That was up in Tacoma, WA. The bridge designers didn’t realize the resonance frequency of the suspension span made it extremely vulnerable to high winds, and on a windy day, the wind caused a resonant swaying that eventually caused the span to fall. When the replacement bridge opened in 1950, it was designed to vastly better handle the high winds in the area.

[BenLurkin]

Klingon cloaked

[TalBlack]

These are the same people who think they can predict “global warming” A little wind baffles these dummies...

[mountainlion]

Check out H.A.R.R.P for a lot of your atmospheric mysteries.

[Patriot777]

Earthquake

[Roccus]

I must have slept thru the big whooosh.. not a fruit dropped last night.

Not even in the Mission District bars?

[lone star annie]

Post of the day!! LOL

[kaehurowing]

“While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house: And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.” Job 1:18-19

[sheana]

I was in Ventura burning up when that happened. Ran into one of my neighbors as he was coming back from Santa Barbara and he was like.....wow! Wind and pouring in Santa Barbara! It was just hot and humid as heck in Ventura. Finally sprinkled a little that night.

[Patriot Babe]

Wow I guess we need to start building those strong Dome Houses.

[PeterPrinciple]

Way out west, they got a name
For rain and wind and fire
The rain is Tess, the fire’s joe and
They call the wind Mariah

[Behind the Blue Wall]

I was awakened by it. It really was pretty odd, a generally windless night broken by an or so of 40-50 mph winds. From the sound of it, and the current weather, I’d bet it was just a little early season super weak and small low-pressure system blowing through.

[mabarker1]

Cloaked ET’s Racing.

Now Uncloak and put it on TV, I’m fed up with NUTZCAR.

[Yaelle]

I can go from 115 to 85 degrees in 20 minutes on one road here. (SoCal Malibu area)

[MayflowerMadam]

Maybe it’s a message from Above...?

[Pajamajan]

"Check out H.A.R.R.P. for a lot of your atmospheric mysteries"

Think it's called H.A.A.R.P. and sounded like a bad idea. Experimenting with weather control might give too much opportunity for the laws of unintended consequences to come into play IMO.