Southern California Snow

[StarHalo]

Greetings from the dusty California High Desert, where the sun and sand...er..

 

[Flying Turtle]

Looks like fun. We haven't seen that much in a couple years.

Geoff

 

[jzmtl]

Pfft, you call that snow?

 

[kongfuchicken]

I'd also make some comment about how much more fierce snowstorms were in my days and to get off my lawn but StarHalo, that second picture you took is nothing short of amazingly beautiful!

 

[StarHalo]

I grew up in Kansas, where this would indeed be considered a mild dusting of snow, but I'm taking these pictures from the middle of a desert - a 110+ degrees in the summer, cactus and tumbleweed actual desert. Expect some record/never-before-seen snow level reports (it's been snowing all day, several inches more since I took the pictures earlier; I measured seven inches an hour ago, and the temp is about to fall below freezing..)

 

[jzmtl]

Ohh, 7 inch in a place where people have summer tire and never driven on snow before, sounds like fun.

 

[addictedmatt]

The pic of the flower is pretty awesome. We are supposed to get a foot tonight, guess I'm getting up early. The weather channel suggests keeping an extra flashlight in the car, but I doubt I'll need more than five.:laughing:

 

[StarHalo]

Oh, I forgot to update, here's how the last 48 hours have played out - at 9AM on the day I took those pictures, the single major artery (I-15 Cajon Pass) that leads out of the High Desert down to Los Angeles was CLOSED. This means that tens of thousands of people who drove to work suddenly found themselves essentially trapped on the other side of a mountain range (there is a detour, but you have to drive completely around the mountain range on the Coastal Highway, easily a 4+ hour detour). By that night, we had right around 8 inches of snow total. A local town near the interstate closing point set up an "Evacuation Center" for people who could not find a hotel room and needed someplace to stay or park.

Skip ahead to the next morning (the 18th), at 7AM the interstate finally reopens, but is completely jammed and moving only in fits and starts - at the time the highway reopened, there were still over 400 cars stuck on/near the road waiting to be moved, plus at the same time there was a huge rush of tourists who wanted to get up the mountain to ski the new record snowfall. The interstate remained jammed until well after the evening rush hour.

But through it all we never lost power; we had plenty of heat/food/supplies and everything went smoothly and comfortable for us (and everyone else who decided to stay home). Plus my born-in-Cali wife and two boys got to go out and play in their first ever snowfall, fun stuff :twothumbs

 

[Braddah_Bill]

Let me tell you, if it ever snows in Hawaii all hell is gonna break loose.

 

[BUZ]

Darn global warming!

 

[LEDAdd1ct]

My brother in I were probly near you in late June/early July this summer. What town are you in?

 

[stitch_paradox]

Hey star halo where in souther cali are you located?

 

[Qoose]

Same question, where are you? I just left there a week ago... and of course it snows...

 

[StarHalo]

I'm in Victorville, south of Barstow. You'll pass by me each time you drive to Vegas from the south

It's 50-ish, sunny and cloudless lately, back to normal desert winter weather..