Bay Area Tornado Caught On Camera: Report

PETALUMA, CA — A video of a tornado touching down Thursday outside of Petaluma has gone viral and the National Weather Service was working to confirm it.

The video purportedly shows a funnel cloud touching down shortly after 11 a.m. Thursday in Two Rock, an unincorporated community of Sonoma County.

"This is an unconfirmed report of a tornado outside Petaluma," National Weather Service meteorologist Nicole Sarment said in an email to Patch. "We have had partner agencies on the ground searching for damage and other eyewitness accounts. The video appears to be authentic and we're doing our due diligence to confirm."

Watch the video on YouTube.

If confirmed through other sources, the weather service will issue a local storm report; if the tornado damaged anything, the event will be entered into the weather service's StormData database.

Tornado Hits Santa Rosa

The last time a tornado touched down in Sonoma County it caused $50,000 in property damage.

It happened March 18, 2011, in Santa Rosa. The 100-yard-wide tornado was rated an EF1. It destroyed a metal building and severely damaged a metal gate, according to the National Weather Service's storm record of the tornado.

"A series of weather systems bringing heavy rain, strong winds, high surf, and a tornado affected the District on March 16-21, 2011," the weather service report stated."Two deaths occurred during this time."