It’s Winter In SoCal

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The NWS chat channel has been up in another browser window most of the past two days. It’s a meeting place for media, emergency managers and NWS forecasters. All the chatter has been winter related.

Finally after a year and a half, SoCal winter has found the Foxes.

The main player is a storm from the north which managed to stay inland and stay cold. It doesn’t happen often.

Indio, at the far end of the Coachella Valley, only got to 53 today. Every other December 31 on record was warmer by at least two degrees and the record goes back to 1894!

We’re about as far south as Charleston, SC. Snow fell at an altitude of 1350 feet above sea level.

Hundreds of cars were stranded in dozens of spots. Parts of I-10 and I-15 were snowcovered. Driving in snow is much different here where slopes are steep and long. Chains are required.

My cousin, Melissa told Helaine this was the coldest she could remember. The wind was probably her deciding factor. We had gusts in the mid 30s overnight. Trash cans were flying. Some mountaintops and passes went over 60 mph.

The Sun was out this morning. I looked toward Santiago Peak, around dozen miles from here, and saw white!

“Be right back,” I told Helaine, then hopped in the car to take the two shots above.

By early next week we’ll be back in the mid 70s. It’s winter in SoCal.

2 thoughts on “It’s Winter In SoCal”

  1. Sorry winter found you, but it seems a tough winter week for much of the nation! I saw that Oceanside, CA right on the water fell to 29 F (the high never got out of the 50’s), San Diego (Brown Field) fell to 35 F last night and freeze warnings are in effect across inland southeast CA. Meanwhile, Las Vegas crashed down to 30 F and it looks like a major winter storm is spreading across the whole USA. Freezing precp in TX, Midwest, much of New England…etc when will it end!

    Down here in Florida it sure does not feel like winter – the forecast is for 80 F for much of the area in the coming days. As we move southward down the pensula a little more each week (we are making our way toward the Keys over the next month), the imagery and weather in Florida , along with a mix of colorful characters, often create at atmosphere where I have to remember that I’m even in the United States (lol).

    Today riding my bike, I veered off the main coastal highway (A1A) in Cocoa Beach into a neighborhood. Passing a group of surfers swapping stories about shark attacks, I look down a side street, and there amid towering Live Oaks, Coconut Palms, massive cactus, and aroids almost covering the street – I see a sun burnished slender man, perhaps in his mid-70’s, with a enormous handlebar mustache, slowly peddling 1930’s high rise bike. With his giant straw hat, old fashioned British-style blue blazer (but no shirt under it!), baggy Bermuda shorts, the back of his bike stuffed with 20 coconuts in a yellow net….he looks like some expat gone mad in one of the Queens tropical backwaters (LOL). He passes me with content smile and disappears down an alley blocked by two towering Canary Island Date Palms.

    I must admit, thoughts of blustery cold weather, Connecticut, snow, congested highways, business suits, gray skies, long commutes, …etc… seem a long way off.

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