(KRON) — Waymo temporarily halted its services in the Bay Area on Christmas in response to an early-morning flash flood warning issued by the National Weather Service as heavy rain and strong winds hit the area. The NWS issued a flash flood warning for San Francisco at 3 a.m. The warning remained in effect until 6 a.m. A flood watch remains in effect in the Bay Area until 10 p.m. The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management has advised the public to take the warnings seriously. As a result, Waymo remained out of service until Thursday evening. “Given the critical severity of the flash flood warning early this morning, we temporarily paused our service in the San Francisco Bay Area,” Waymo told KRON4 News. “We are coordinating closely with city officials and emergency management, and we will bring our service back online as soon as possible in line with our safety protocols.” A Waymo representative told KRON4 that the autonomous taxi company later resumed service after a temporary pause due to the flash flood warning. The company said it would continue to monitor the weather and adjust service if necessary. Bay Area storm updates: Tornado warning issued for Santa Cruz County (NWS) Customers attempting to use the Waymo app were met with a message reading “our service is currently paused. We’re sorry for the inconvenience  — please check back again soon.” Waymo said it will issue fleet-wide updates to its robotaxis following a widespread power outage in San Francisco over the weekend, which caused dozens of its cars to stop working. The frozen Waymos blocked intersections where traffic lights had gone dark, adding to the chaos of the days-long outage, which left 130,000 PGE customers without power. ...read more read less