Posted on 09/11/2017 12:21:36 PM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
SF is approaching its Day of Reckoning.
“Pockets of wind are not all that unusual.”
I occasionally have gusts of wind in my pockets. I attribute this phenomenon to global warming and I vehemently assert that it has nothing to do with BBQ baked beans.
The fog rolling in can come on a pretty strong breeze, due to temperature variation I would assume, but that’s not typically a nighttime thing as far as I know. I used to like to go out on the Golden Gate to catch it rolling in on sunny afternoons, from sunny and fairly warm with a slight breeze to whoosh! fogged in and chilly in a matter of minutes, looked like a gray wall coming into the bay.
I’ve always heard that bridge being called “Bouncing Betty.” Had family out there, two uncles were stationed there in WWII and liked it so they stayed. One of them had been on that bridge before when it went off, not the final time when it collapsed, though. He talked about it a lot, must’ve been very memorable.
Well you do live on a ranch and there is the Blazing Saddles effect. ;-)
Someone fooling with the anemometers?
That's cool you had family who actually experienced it. Must have been incredible to see. The video link below is super...lot of different vids collected into this one:
Watch "Gallopin' Gertie" in Action
I’ve seen it, the guy left his dog in that car so I don’t like to watch, poor dog.
Think it’s called H.A.A.R.P.
It is only called HAARP if your fingers are working right.
Some things don’t change. The good news is the dog was rescued from the car on the bridge by a very brave Professor.
Source? I’ve been under the impression for many years that the dog went down with the car and the bridge.
Gust front or outflow from dying thunderstorms, it happens in Phoenix during the summer storm season.
It was in the video about half way through. Caption said the professor saved the dog at great peril to his own life.
I think it is the air between the ears of most San Francisco residents’ ears.
I saw something like that. Small size hail in a fully in New Mexico. Just that small location. Nowhere else. It was a cloudy day but nothing unusual except for that small area.
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