This type of cloud I consider to also be a UFO type of Cloud as very odd things tend to happen when you see clouds like this. However, the clouds over Shasta that actually look like UFOs are called Lenticular clouds.
Next picture is a snow (not ice covered lake). It's called Castle Lake and is at around 6000 feet elevation similar to Lake Tahoe in elevation. My friend talked to some fishermen and told them the snow on the lake might be fatal because there isn't any ice under it to keep you above it. You might walk out for awhile and then sink in and be gone. The snow is 5 feet thick with no ice under it.
The bottom picture is what the Forest Service Outhouse rest stop looks like with this much snow there AT BUNNY FLAT. AS YOU CAN SEE 6950 FEET ELEVATION.
Just after I took the last picture about 4pm today or so it started snowing and snowed all the way down to about 5500 feet. Likely lots of new snow tomorrow and more Saturday too. We expect some snow in town as well by morning if it sticks. Right now it's raining cats and dogs where I am. I got a pizza tonight to go and took it to some friends to share and the top was totally soaked just from walking the pizza to the car. The box top got soaked not the pizza. So, likely there could be a foot to 3 feet more new snow on top of the 5 to 8 feet already there on the mountain from the rains here and snows there by morning. I hope anyone camping in the snow or trying to climb the mountain has heard the weather report and knows and is prepared for what is coming now.
I remember climbing wet out of an emergency snow cave in 1970 when my Levi jeans froze solid except at the knees and have to move through 3 to 4 feet of new powder snow on top of 3 to 5 feet of base then. We had to take turns packing the snow shoe tracks because it is such exhausting work trying to find our way down to the road and our car (my 1966 VW Bug), when we finally got there we didn't even know for sure it was the road because there was about 7 to 8 feet of drifted snow over the road. One of us was bright enough to dig down 7 to 8 feet to find the road and to realize it actually was the road then in 1970. When we snow shoed up to my car all we saw was 3 inches of radio aerial and that was all. We were saved by a snow plow opening the road to the ski lift that has since been destroyed by an avalanche above Panther Meadows since then then. Luckily, we knew one of the guys who ran the ski lift and so we hopped in their car where the heater was running and rode up behind the 8 foot tall plus snow plow and warmed our hands and faces in the Ski Lodge bathrooms before we hitched a ride down to my 1966 VW bug then. By then the snow plows had dug out most of the parking lot we were in so it only took us about 1/2 hour to an hour to dig it out and drive down the mountain and get a hotel room for 4 days.
Today people who experienced what we did then would go to the hospital for exposure. However, then we just got a hotel room and took turns taking baths to try to get our hands, fingers, arms, legs and toes to work right again. But all my joints in my arms and legs hurt constantly for several years after that from almost freezing to death that night in the snow cave. But, we were lucky, everyone higher on the mountain than us that night lost fingers and toes but we were able to keep all our fingers and toes for life. By God's Grace.
By the way these are what lenticular clouds over mt. shasta look like:
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