West Coast Deep Freeze

• Icy blizzard that smacked Northwest barrels east 
• Northwest freezes as rare blizzard roars through
• click on "Icy blizzard" or "Northwest freezes" to read weather related news articles to this blog article. 

Though our temperatures don't ever compare with the Northern Midwest, Colorado, Utah, Idaho or even Santa Fe or Taos or the East Coast, for us here on the Pacific this is pretty cold, and usually as cold as it ever gets here.

I was listening to the weather man and snow is expected to fall down to 1500 feet. So that means that you could be standing where it is snowing and looking at the ocean and still be in northern California. That is very unusual. Temperatures this regularly low throughout the state are very unusual and usually happen like this at most once or twice a year. The other problem this could cause is in frozen produce growing in the Sacramento Valley and even Salinas Valley and other growing regions in Northern California and might affect produce prices in the U.S. later this month because of this.

Because I live on the Northern California ocean our lows will be mitigated by the Pacific ocean so we should stay just barely above freezing tonight here on the coast. But inland freezing temperatures will affect almost everyone from about Big Sur inland all the way across the state  and into Nevada by tomorrow morning and all points northwards. So, there likely will be a lot of broken water pipes in people's homes not usually prepared for temperatures this cold.

I was also checking out the Ski Lifts temperature around 2 pm today:
Mt. Ashland is presently at 10 degrees Fahrenheit with 22 inches of snow at the ski lift and still snowing.
Mt. Shasta Ski Park is at 22 degrees Fahrenheit with 20 inches of snow and still snowing.
Squaw Valley Ski area near Lake Tahoe is at 20 degrees with a maximum 76 inch base at it's higher levels and snowing heavily at the upper elevations.

Even the little city of Mt. Shasta expects only 12 degrees Fahrenheit tonight which will probably be one of the colder nights this year.

So, this year might turn out to be a really good ski season for the West Coast if the snow keeps coming and the temperatures stay low enough through November and December.

And if you are in Northern California or further north or east of us, check your water pipes and if necessary shut off your water heater and run the water both hot and cold a trickle if you think it will keep your pipes from freezing and breaking in the unusually cold arctic weather we are now getting.

I also found out that Kirkwood Ski Area in the Lake Tahoe Region of California got 10 1/2 feet of new snow since the weekend. That must be some kind of record in this short of time. I hope people who didn't expect this snow like hikers who are backpackers in the Sierras and Cascades are all okay after this much snow.  Because unless they have really good snowshoes they are going to stay wherever they are for some time in weather like this in the mountain ranges.