Monday, December 7, 2009

West Coastal Snow-California

It was very cold last night for the northern California coast. Just a little inland some places will see the 20s. It will be in the upper 30s tonight where I live on the ocean. I turned on the news to hear of 6 inches of snow in some places in the coastal range and of snow above 1500 feet and of the snow level dropping to 500 feet in some places. Though we usually get a little frosting of snow in the coastal range it was unusual to see snow in Big Sur on the weather map right on the coast. It probably didn't stick except above 1500 feet but that is still pretty unusual. Hiway 17 from Santa Cruz into San Jose was receiving snow as well. That is a place you don't really want to drive at all if it is snowing as parts of that road are nicknamed "Blood Alley" because of how dangerous that drive can be in heavy traffic even without any rain or snow present. Also, Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California is sure to have a frosting today.

Two days later: Since I wrote the above there have been 2 more days of near freezing or below freezing temperatures on the California coast. Temperatures I haven't ever seen such as 11 below freezing Fahrenheit in Tahoe City(next to Lake Tahoe) and near Zero Fahrenheit in the little city of Mt. Shasta. One just usually doesn't see temperatures like this at all except above 8000 feet in elevation in California. California has been a deep freeze with very low snow levels throughout the state this week. And when the Cold Blast moved towards Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado it only got worse. I think we have one more night of freezing and below temperatures on the California Coast. 2pm Wednesday December 9th 2009

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