High Surf — San Francisco Peninsula Coast, California

2010-01-20 to 2010-01-21 · San Francisco Peninsula Coast, California

Event narrative

High surf caused an 80-foot-wide and 20-foot deep chunk of land to erode into the ocean in Pacifica at 5 a.m. on January 21. Residents of six apartment units were evacuated as the cliff eroded up to their back porches. The owners of the apartments are attempting to strengthen the cliff and save the apartments from succumbing to the same fate as the previous cliff face. So far they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this project.

Wider weather episode

The third in a series of significant storms brought strong winds and heavy rain to the San Francisco and Monterey Bay areas. This storm, the strongest of the week, developed over the Pacific Ocean with a strong parent low pressure based in the Gulf of Alaska. Around 159,000 customers lost power across the San Francisco Bay area with nearly 22,000 customers without power in the Monterey Bay area. Numerous power lines and trees were knocked down when strong wind combined with saturated soil. Also, areas of flooding occurred causing mainly problems for vehicles.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 213769. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.