Storm brings rain, hail, lightning to Sonoma County

The line of thunderstorms came through parts of Sonoma County with force Sunday but left quickly.|

A line of thunderstorms passed over Sonoma County Sunday afternoon, causing several lightning strikes and dumping unexpected sporadic rain and hail across the area.

Revelers at the annual Railroad Square Music Festival ducked for cover around 4:30 p.m. as dark skies and strong wind gusts blew pea-sized hail across the surpised crowd.

The weird weather was the result of a unusually cold upper-level low moving across Northern California and Nevada, and clashing with the warmer air mass that had dominated until then, said Will Pi, a meteorologist with the U.S. Weather Service in Monterey.

“That makes for a really unsettled atmosphere,” Pi said.

The storm clouds did not stay long and the popular downtown concert continued, but the chance of showers from the system exists through midnight, Pi said.

There were several lightning strikes in the Petaluma area around 5:20 p.m., about the time a city fire station experienced a power surge that triggered a piece of communications equipment, Capt. Jude Prokop said.

Around the time of the strikes, the station alert system, which sends tones alterting firefighters to an incoming call, was set off at Station 3 on South McDowell Boulevard for about about two minutes even though there was no call, Prokop said.

While it’s not certain a lightning strike caused the surge that damaged the equipment, it seems pretty likely, Prokop said.

The station switched to a backup system and was responding to calls as normal a short time later, he said.

The June storm brought rain, thunder, lightning and even snow in parts of the Sierra Nevada and several lightning strikes were reported in Plumas and Tehama counties.

The National Weather Service in Sacramento says up to 5 inches of snow is expected in higher elevations of the Northern Sierra, with possibly 8 to 12 inches of snow falling over Lassen Volcanic National Park.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 707-521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.

UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy:
  • This is a family newspaper, please use a kind and respectful tone.
  • No profanity, hate speech or personal attacks. No off-topic remarks.
  • No disinformation about current events.
  • We will remove any comments — or commenters — that do not follow this commenting policy.