California revels in a rare wet winter, and more storms are in the forecast
By Javier Panzar and Rong-Gong Lin II
Feb 06, 2019 | 11:05 AM
| San Francisco
Mammoth snow
Workers shovel giant snow drifts off the roof of the Mammoth Luxury Outlets in Mammoth Lakes after a blizzard dropped as much as 10 feet of snow in the biggest storm system so far this season Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019. Mammoth Mountain was closed Tuesday because of the blizzard but reopened Wednesday. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
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Snowcapped mountains are pretty typical in California — just not the peaks that got a dusting this week.
A series of storms has brought a rare wet winter to the state, sending snow levels plunging and creating some surreal scenes Californians won’t soon forget: a blanket of white covering vineyards in Napa Valley. Plows clearing California 17 between Santa Cruz and San Jose. Peaks in the San Francisco Bay Area with an alpine feel. Even San Francisco’s Twin Peaks got some snow.
The conditions highlight a season of storms that have left their mark from the Sierra Nevada range, where one-third of California’s water supply originates, to Los Angeles, which has endured six dry winters out of its last seven. It’s a welcome turn of events for a state still recovering from severe drought.
By Tuesday, it was almost becoming too much of a good thing.
In the Sierra, as much as 10 feet of snow kept several ski resort closed Tuesday. In Southern California, officials warned of snow levels dropping Wednesday to elevations as low as 2,000 feet above sea level, which could shut down sections of Interstates 5 and 15 as well as other mountain passes.
Big Bear and Wrightwood were poised to see as much as 3 to 4 inches of snowfall through Tuesday night, and up to 8 inches could fall at Mt. Laguna in San Diego County.
This latest series of storms comes around the midpoint of California’s wet season.
“This is shaping up to be a wet year,” said Chris Orrock, spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources, citing atmospheric-river events that gave the state a good three weeks of rain in January before a round of cold storms arrived at the start of February.