San Francisco, CA
How meteorologists tracked the tornado risk in Scotts Valley, San Francisco
The intense weather seen all around the Bay Area this weekend made for long days for the employees at the National Weather Service’s Bay Area offices in Monterey. The first-ever tornado warning was issued for San Francisco on Saturday and a tornado was confirmed later that day in Scotts Valley in Santa Cruz County.
While having one tornado warning and another actual tornado all in one day might be common in other parts of the country, in the Bay Area, it’s a rarity.
As SFGate first reported, two National Weather Service Bay Area meteorologists had a long day Saturday as they started the day surveying damage in San Francisco and finished the day responding to the tornado in Santa Cruz County.
The two meteorologists, Brian Garcia and Dalton Behringer, started their morning on Saturday at the NWS Monterey offices.
At 5:50 in the morning, Behringer recalled clocking in as his colleagues who had been up all night working had just issued the first-ever tornado warning for San Francisco. Behringer said that a warning was issued due to what NWS had seen on the radar, which indicated there might have been a tornado in San Francisco.
Once the storm had passed, Behringer and Garcia drove up to San Francisco around 10:00 a.m. to investigate whether a tornado had touched down. They found the most intense tree damage on the western end of Golden Gate Park around the Bison Paddock.
“You couldn’t look a single direction without seeing a tree down somewhere or branches down somewhere,” Behringer recalled.
However, the meteorologists noticed something about the way the trees had fallen: they all fell in the same direction. They observed other notable damage in the Richmond District, the Presidio, the Mission, and Bernal Heights, but ultimately, they found no evidence of a tornado.
Behringer said that based on weather conditions, there might have been a funnel cloud or water spout while the storm was over the water near San Francisco. Still, because the peak of the storm happened before sunrise, there isn’t any documentation of that.
While the meteorologists were wrapping up in San Francisco Saturday afternoon, they got a call from their office alerting them that Scotts Valley had a tornado.
So Behringer and Garcia were then dispatched from San Francisco to Santa Cruz County, trying to get there in time to make the most of the remaining daylight hours.
When they arrived in Scotts Valley, the meteorologists saw many downed trees, downed power lines, damaged cars, and debris strewn across a retail center parking lot.
Unlike the scene in San Francisco, they saw what Behringer called the tell-tale sign of a tornado in Scotts Valley: debris strewn in multiple different directions.
“You look to your right and there’s a sign that fell this way and you look to your left and there’s a sign that fell the other way and that’s exactly the thing that we look for,” Behringer explained.
The team determined that the tornado was an EF1 strength because of the cars it flipped over.
In a month where Bay Area residents are getting lots of practice with emergency warnings, many are wondering: why was a tornado warning issued for San Francisco and not Santa Cruz County?
Behringer explained that several factors played into this. He noted that the NWS put a special marine warning in place when the storm was over the water near Santa Cruz. He said that the warning also advised about the possibility of water spouts as the storm passed over the water.
Behringer said the NWS issued a severe thunderstorm warning about ten minutes before the tornado hit. He added that the advised actions for a severe thunderstorm warning in the Bay Area are the same as those for a tornado.
Move to the lowest floor of your home or business and get to the most interior room,” he said.
“With a lack of ground verification, and just taking into account what had happened earlier in the day, and having the knowledge with us surveying that the tornado actually didn’t touch down in San Francisco, I think that kind of prompted a little hesitancy as far as going full tornado warning,” Behringer said of the warnings for the Santa Cruz County weather event.
Behringer noted these storms happen fast, and it is hard to get real-time information, especially in less-populated areas like Santa Cruz County.
In San Francisco, on Sundays, many residents made their own on-the-ground observations as they walked through the toppled trees throughout the city.
San Francisco residents Sharaya Souza and Matthew Crane walked through Golden Gate Park on Sunday, in part, to check on the bison in the park’s Bison Paddock after the storm.
“A couple of fences were crushed,” Crane said of the Bison Paddock, noting that while the bison were still enclosed, there was damage to the area around them.
Souza said she’s seeing more damage from this storm in the park than previous ones.
“Especially from last year, there were a lot of fallen trees and we had really heavy rainfall, and I feel like this year it’s just taken an even bigger hit,” she noted
While the Bay Area is not known for tornadoes, Behringer said the conditions and the chances aligned Saturday.
“The fact that we were doing two separate damage surveys yesterday in the same day was quite astonishing,” he added, calling Saturday a “standout day” in his work four years with NWS Bay Area.
Behringer said his colleagues continue to survey the Scotts Valley location for more details. Saturday was certainly a noteworthy day for Bay Area weather, and one meteorologist will continue to study.
Bay Area High School baseball fans are treated to a rare opportunity Saturday (April 18) with three games at Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, including the famed Bruce-Mahoney clash between West Catholic Athletic League rivals St. Ignatius and Sacred Heart Cathedral.
The first pitch of the 20th annual Dante Benedetti Baseball Classic starts at 11 a.m. and pits two more San Francisco private schools as University (9-7), winners of four straight, taking on Riordan (5-11).
That will be followed by the Bruce-Mahoney game at 2:30 between St. Ignatius (12-5, 4-2 WCAL) and the Irish (7-10, 1-5) and finished off with a North Coast Section clash between North Bay’s Marin Catholic (9-7) against Acalanes (7-6-1).
The Benedetti Classic, founded by Dante’s Boys Foundation board member Tom Lounibos and Giants president Larry Baer, benefits the DBF which honors the spirit of Benedetti who for nearly 40 years owned San Francisco’s Mr. Baseball nickname for his kindness and generosity to baseball-playing youth in the area.
Among their philanthropic efforts are glove and baseball equipment drives, field renovations and contributions to scholarships and sponsorships.
After starting the season 0-4 — three of those losses were by one run — University, under head coach Andrew Suvunnachuen, has found its way, winning the last four, all in Bay Counties League play, by a combined 51-6 count over Lick-Wilmerding (16-1 and 11-3) and San Domenico (13-2 and 11-0).
Senior catcher and pitcher Jett Messenger leads the way with a .447 average, while getting on base at a .638 rate. He also leads the team with 20 stolen bases. Junior third baseman Tate Gebhart is hitting .419, while Leo Felder and Behbart share the RBI lead with 15 each.
Junior Matthew Foley is 3-2 on the mound with a 2.38 ERA and 25 strikeouts in 17.2 innings.
Riordan, under second-year head coach Craig Sargent, was 5-5 in nonleague games but lost six straight in the rugged WCAL, losing two tough games this week to Mitty (3-2 and 7-4). Junior third baseman and pitcher Santiono Williams leads the team in batting average (.371), on-base percentage (.488) and stolen bases (nine). He’s also been the team’s top pitcher at 4-2 with a 2.84 ERA.
The teams have split two previous games in their history, with Riordan winning 2-0 in 2023 and University prevailing 5-0 in 2021.
St. Ignatius, led by ninth-year head coach Brian Pollzzie, has already secured the Bruce-Mahoney trophy with four straight wins — one each in football, girls volleyball, boys basketball and girls basketball — but this rivalry is always spirited.
The Wildcats, who are ranked fourth in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Chronicle, are coming off a tough 3-0 home loss to No. 2 St. Francis on Friday after beating the host Lancers 10-6 on Tuesday.
The team is led by Stanford-bound Archer Horn, who is hitting .486 with four home runs and a .604 on-base percentage. The shortstop and pitcher also has not allowed an earned run in three pitching appearances while registering one save.
Pitching is a team’s strength with a 2.59 ERA, led by a brigade of strong arms including Leo Rhein (2-0, 2.38), Tycco Giometti (2-1, 2.62), Charlie Stecher 1-1, 0.72) and Chase Gordon (1-0, 2.80). The team is missing standout Finn Demuth, out of the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
Sacred Heart Cathedral, led by fourth-year head coach Gregg Franceschi, has scored 60 runs on the season and given up 61. The Irish are coming off two losses to eighth-ranked Valley Christian (5-2 and 10-1).
They are led offensively by junior outfielder Brody O’Sullivan (.381) and senior infielder Jacob Vines (.378). Johnny Nepomuceno and Max Nylander are other run-producers. Zach Stallworth (37 strikeouts, 29.2 innings) and Cooper Rogers Lewis (0.25 ERA) have been the team’s top pitchers.
The series has been remarkably close since 2005 with Sacred Heart Cathedral holding a 27-20 edge, though St. Ignatius won both games last season (5-0 and 6-3) after the Irish won 9-7 and 1-0 in 2024.
Marin Catholic hopes to get back to winning after starting the season 9-1, but have since lost six straight, four in Marin County Athletic League play, including 4-2 to Novato on Thursday. Senior outfield Luke Martin is the team’s leading hitter at .478 while senior infielder and pitcher Cooper Mitchell is at .455. Senior infielder Walker Untermann leads the team with 15 RBIs.
Acalanes is at the other end of the spectrum, winners of five of six after a 2-5-1 start. Junior infielder Tyler Winkles, also a highly recruited quarterback in football, leads the team with a .383 average and nine stolen bases. Riley Gates (2-3, 2.49 ERA, 30 strikeouts) is the team’s top pitcher.
The teams have played three times, all since 2022, with Marin Catholic owning a 2-1 lead. Acalanes won last year’s game 8-7.
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Chinatown fatal crash victim ID’d, safety measures proposed
The victim killed in Friday’s Chinatown crash was identified Monday by the medical examiner as Cutberto Zamora-Martinez, 49, of San Joaquin County. At a meeting on Monday, city officials said the cause of the crash is still under investigation.
SAN FRANCISCO – A 76-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and speeding following a crash in San Francisco’s Chinatown that killed a man working in the area.
Zhuo Ming Lu, 76, is accused in the March 27 crash that left 49-year-old Cutberto Zamora-Martinez, of San Joaquin County, dead.
Suspect was trying to park
What we know:
Authorities said Lu was attempting to park near Grant Avenue and Jackson Street when his vehicle jumped the sidewalk and crashed into the landmark New Lung Ting Café, also known as the Pork Chop House. The vehicle also struck two pedestrians, including Zamora-Martinez.
Zamora-Martinez died from his injuries.
He had been working in the area, according to a GoFundMe page. A San Francisco Police Department source close to the investigation told KTVU the victims were carpet installers arriving for work.
The fundraising page described Zamora-Martinez as a husband and father who was the sole provider for his family and “a humble man who wanted the best for his family.”
Before his arrest, Lu had been cooperating with investigators. Authorities have not confirmed what caused the crash.
Some residents questioned whether the driver’s age or a possible confusion between the brake and gas pedals may have been factors.
“Maybe if people hit a certain age, you got to get retested for your driver’s license is something I was thinking about,” said Keith Hong, who works next door to the crash site.
Another case involving an elderly driver
Big picture view:
In an unrelated case, Mary Fong Lau, 80, was sentenced to probation after killing a family of four, two parents and their young children. in March 2024. Authorities said Lau struck the victims as they waited at a Muni stop on their way to the zoo.
Lau pleaded no contest to four felony counts of vehicular manslaughter, and a judge accepted the plea. A Superior Court judge cited her age, remorse and lack of criminal history in the sentencing decision.
She was placed on probation for two years, banned from driving for three years and ordered to complete 200 hours of community service.
The Source: San Francisco Police Department, prior reporting
San Francisco first came to know chefs Laura and Sayat Ozyilmaz through their pop-up Istanbul Modern, and later through their breakthrough Presidio restaurant Dalida. The duo’s success is grounded in their take on Eastern Mediterranean food, which they made a conscious decision to champion 10 years ago.
Fast-forward to 2026, and now Laura is taking on a personal project of her own, with Sayat by her side, placing foods from Mexico’s Guerrero and Sinaloa center stage at Maria Isabel. It’s a refreshing menu that combines both Mexican and local ingredients, through the lens of the Ozyilmazes cooking backgrounds.
Reservations are released on OpenTable 30 days in advance, but Laura confirmed that they do take walk-ins depending on space. Smaller parties or solo diners might have better luck sliding in, thanks to the counter in the brighter, “Maria” portion of the restaurant.
The cocktails from consulting bar director Evan Williams are always worth a glimpse, whether at Dalida or at Maria Isabel. They’re well-balanced and have incredible depth and technique behind them. That being said, the team sourced wines from woman-led wine brands such as LOTIS Wines and Amevive Wine, if you’re looking to explore past the usual selections you’ll see elsewhere.
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