Southern California mountains see season’s first snow, with another storm forecast for next week
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The first snowflakes from the season started falling Tuesday in Southern California.
“It’s going to be real nice,” said Andrew Moseley, who was driving along a stretch of Highway 99 in the Angeles National Forest north of Los Angeles, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) east of the Sacramento area. “We expected it to snow,” he said.
Moseley said a half inch fell at his house about 5:15 p.m., and was followed by two more inches between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Moseley said he drove his Jeep to work around the same time. He drove another 30 miles (48 kilometers) to the mountain town of Pico Rivera, where he said it was the first snowfall of the season.
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In an earlier forecast from the National Weather Service, the service said up to seven inches (18 centimeters) of snow could be expected in L.A. and the San Francisco Bay Area, with perhaps three to seven inches (7 to 16 centimeters) in the central Sierra Nevada, north of San Francisco.
Forecasters said the winter storm will be followed by another storm on Wednesday.
“We will likely see another storm come through sometime tomorrow or Thursday,” the weather service said. “This looks like a low pressure system that will spread out and it will affect the mountains and possibly down to the Bay Area.”
The storm’s early snowfall was likely made possible by a warmer air mass over the Pacific that allowed the moist air to rise from the depths of the ocean, said Chris Boyd, a meteorologist with the weather service.
That was also possible for rainfall in Southern California, according to the weather service.