Wild weather, including a rare tornado, struck the Seattle area Sunday just as the city prepared to host the NFL’s National Football Conference championship game.

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The tornado struck the city of Gig Harbor, 23 miles southwest of downtown Seattle, at 2:25 p.m. PST. It traveled a short distance over land before moving over the body of water also known as Gig Harbor, becoming a waterspout.

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The twister, associated with a small storm cell moving through the area, did only minor damage to some windows and kayaks. Nobody was injured.

Based on the damage, the National Weather Service in Seattle gave the tornado a rating of EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. The tornado had a path length of just over four miles.

Earlier Sunday, winds gusting up to 50 mph raked a much larger swath of the Puget Sound region, knocking down several trees and cutting power to at least 90,000 Puget Sound Energy customers. An additional 15,000 Seattle City Light customers were in the dark at one point, as were some 15,000 Snohomish Public Utilities customers.

The utilities scrambled to restore power before the NFC championship game, which pitted the Seattle Seahawks against the Green Bay Packers at CenturyLink Field. The game itself went on as scheduled, but thousands of would-be television viewers remained without power by game time.

Tornadoes are relatively uncommon in Washington, which averages just two twisters per year. The last confirmed tornado to strike the state was an EF1 in Longview on Oct. 23, 2014.

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