Funnel Cloud takes Central Coast residents by surprise

KCOY 12’s newsroom was flooded with calls this morning about what residents in the Santa Maria Valley were seeing in the sky.

Meteorologists with the National Weather Service call it a “Cold Air Funnel Cloud.”

A man who saw it spoke to KCOY 12’s Sean Larsen about how the wind suction was so strong that he couldn’t keep the door shut to his business.

“Looked out across the way into the Eucalyptis trees and there was a funnel cloud probably 30 or 40 feet wide just debris flying in the air towards Zodiac,”Wayne Demchak of Cal-State Auto Parts, Inc. said.

An Iowa native who was eating lunch with her family just around the corner from where heavy winds knocked down 30 feet of fence, said she has been through much worse, including a time when a tornado uplifted her garage from its foundation.

“I think it’s great, I like it like this, we need it,” Jean Roemling said.

She says the weather we get here on the Central Coast is “nothing” compared to her experiences in the Midwest.