Why didn't Scotts Valley receive a Tornado Warning? Here's what National Weather Service says
SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. (KGO) -- Aftermath from a rare EF1 tornado was still being dealt with in Scotts Valley on Monday.
Crews were hard at work clearing debris and fixing traffic signals along Mt. Herman Road two days after the tornado.
On Saturday, the day of the tornado, the National Weather Service issued the first-ever Tornado Warning in San Francisco, a tornado there never happened.
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Later in the day, Scotts Valley residents received a Thunderstorm Warning, but not a Tornado Warning.
ABC7 asked why.
"It can get a little hard to tell on radar what's going on in the mountains especially when you have terrain like that it can get tough to tell," said Dalton Behringer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Bay Area.
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The National Weather Service said that the Thunderstorm Warning does still call on people to seek shelter in the center most room of a sturdy building.
A warning they hope people will take seriously.
"Severe thunderstorms that are rotating can produce tornadoes. They may not at times as we saw in San Francisco, but they are still dangerous thunderstorms. That's why we issued the separate warnings for them," Behringer said.
RELATED: Scotts Valley cleans up, calms down after EF1 tornado rips through town: 'We dodged a bullet'
AccuWeather chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter says even though tornados are rare in the rugged terrain of Santa Cruz County, the thunderstorm cell that spawned the tornado was trouble from the beginning.
"A tornado can happen anywhere with the right conditions when the right conditions came together," Porter said. "And in this scenario, the right conditions came together in exactly the right spot to produce this damaging tornado."
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Scotts Valley city manager Mali LeGoe said the city works closely with the National Weather Service and hopes lessons can be learned.
"I think that they called it in San Francisco, and then it didn't happen, and then they saw it here and didn't think it could happen, so didn't want to maybe scare people," LeGoe said.
"But, I think in the future, we have to realize that severe weather is real, and it's happening, and just because it hasn't happened here before doesn't mean it can't happen in the future."
RELATED: 5 injured, 'extensive' property damage reported following EF1 tornado in Scotts Valley
The National Weather Service said it's in the beginning stages of its after-action review.
Something they do after every weather event like this to see what it can do better and pour over data gathered.
They remind everyone take alerts they issue seriously.
