Wind Advisory In Effect For East Bay Hills, North Bay, Diablo, Santa Cruz Mountains
BERKELEY (KPIX) - Strong winds were blowing in parts of the Bay Area on Thursday.
The winds began picking up early in the day. Bridge commuters could see it by the look of the choppy white caps on the bay.
At 12:30 p.m., the National Weather Service issued a wind advisory for the North Bay Mountains, East Bay hills, the Diablo range and Santa Cruz mountains, predicting gusts up to 55 mph at higher elevations.
By late afternoon, those winds had already started to build with trees bending to the gust.
"Trees or tree limbs could be blown down and result in local power outages," said the advisory.
Earlier this week the Bay Area experienced heavy rains leaving the ground soft in many places. The big concern for Thursday night was trees coming down, especially since the ground is so wet.
"It just make the situation much worse, um, like I said, trees can come down at any point," says Ronald Gaytan, co-owner of Best Quality Tree Service.
Gaytan says residents should be on the lookout for certain signs that will tell them their tree may be in trouble.
"Mushrooms, Mushrooms, absolutely. Mushrooms usually grow on dead wood…[and] dead roots," he said.
Even with the wind getting stronger Thursday afternoon, visitors still enjoyed the view on Grizzly Peak Road in the Berkeley Hills.
Robert Adams was up there visiting from Minnesota,
"I'm from Buffalo, Minnesota and if you have wind in Minnesota this time of year, you get frostbite. Not here," he said.
The wind advisory remains in effect until 4 a.m. on Friday.