Despite indications seen on radar, the National Weather Service cannot confirm that a tornado touched down in Monterey County on Saturday.  

“We were unable to find damage that would give us confirmation of a tornado touchdown in spite of a strong rotation detected by our radar,” tweeted NWS on Sunday evening.  

A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado Saturday triggered the first Bay Area tornado warning since 2011, according to NWS. 

Meteorologists believed a twister may have touched down in a rural part of northern Monterey County between Moss Landing and Las Lomas, and passed aloft over San Juan Bautista, forecaster Dylan Flynn said Saturday.  

The warning came at 6:29 p.m. Saturday, when a tornadic thunderstorm was located near Prunedale, about nine miles south of Gilroy, moving east at 40 mph.       

People in the affected area were advised to take cover, moving to a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. 

Katy St. Clair got her start in journalism by working in the classifieds department at the East Bay Express during the height of alt weeklies, then sweet talked her way into becoming staff writer, submissions editor, and music editor. She has been a columnist in the East Bay Express, SF Weekly, and the San Francisco Examiner. Starting in 2015, she begrudgingly scaled the inverted pyramid at dailies such as the Vallejo Times-Herald, The Vacaville Reporter, and the Daily Republic. She has her own independent news site and blog that covers the delightfully dysfunctional town of Vallejo, California, where she also collaborates with the investigative team at Open Vallejo. A passionate advocate for people with developmental disabilities, she serves on both the Board of the Arc of Solano and the Arc of California. She lives in Vallejo.