Snow has fallen in California on the last day of summer, giving the towering Sierra Nevada mountain range a wintry look in September and making travel hazardous.
Sixteen vehicles crashed on Interstate 80 as snow and hail fell Thursday, killing a man driving a pickup truck and causing minor injuries to a few other people.
Snow dusted peaks in Yosemite National Park, briefly closing Tioga Pass road, the soaring eastern entry to the park that typically doesn’t become impassable until mid-November. Park rangers urged drivers to remain cautious after the road reopened.
Snow has fallen in California on the last day of summer, giving the towering Sierra Nevada mountain range. This was the scene at Kirkwood Mountain Resort, in California yesterday
Wintry: Snow also covered Heavenly Mountain Resort at South Lake, in Tahoe, California
This was the scene as snow came down on a chairlift at the Northstar California Resort on Thursday
Fog and clouds along the route covered most of the mountain peaks and steam rose from lakes in some areas, prompting drivers to stop frequently to take photos.
Snow also fell in Mammoth Lakes on Thursday evening, creating slick roads and giving the popular ski resort town more or a winter look than one reflecting the last day of summer.
Several inches of snow were expected at elevations of at least 6,000 feet in the northern Sierra, said National Weather Service forecaster Hanna Chandler in Sacramento.
‘The last days of summer,’ the Placer County Sheriff’s Office wryly tweeted in a post showing snow falling on patrol vehicles at its Lake Tahoe station.
An early snowfall blankets wildflowers still hanging onto summer at Ski Bowl in Norden, California yesterday
The first snow of the season is seen near Tioga Pass in Yosemite National Park, California on Thursday
Winter is coming: The first snow of the season is seen at Tenaya Lake in Yosemite National Park
Sugar Bowl, a ski resort perched atop Donner Summit, received a good snow dusting that’s getting skiers excited about the upcoming ski season, said resort spokesman Jon Slaughter.
‘We’ve got people calling about season passes and checking our webcams to take a look at the first snow,’ Slaughter said.
Slaughter, however, didn’t anticipate the storm having much of an impact on how early the resort can open because the snow will likely melt.
But the first snow of the season came just four months after Sugar Bowl’s last ski season ended with nearly 800 inches (20 meters) of snowfall, part of a very wet winter that gave California at least a temporary respite from years of drought that left the Sierra with scant snowcaps.
Jessie Hall, an employee at the Northstar California Resort looks out at the first snow of the season
The Disney Express Ski Lift at Ski Bowl was covered in a dusting of snow after a downfall in Norden, California
At Oroville Dam, where crews are rushing to repair two badly damaged spillways before California’s winter rainy season starts in earnest, dam operators were keeping an eye on forecasts.
‘We’re definitely tracking the weather but it has had no impact and we don’t expect it to,’ said Erin Mellon, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Water Resources.
The taste of winter was not expected to last long.
‘Fall is a big transition period so we have these big dips in temperature and then we go higher,’ said Chandler, the forecaster. ‘It’s kind of a weather rollercoaster.’
Southern California also took an early leap into fall, with cloudy skies and rain showers across the region in advance of the autumnal equinox at 1:02 p.m. PDT Friday.
Flakes of snow come down on Zephyr Lodge at the Northstar California Resort on Thursday
Half Dome, a granite dome at the eastern end of Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park, California, already has a dusting of snow on it
The region was also expecting a warm-up next week with the onset of seasonal Santa Ana winds, the warm and dry gusts that blow from the interior and out to sea and often fan the worst of Southern California’s wildfires.
A season outlook issued by the National Interagency Fire Center predicts a near-normal number of Santa Ana wind days through November.
Large fire potential will be above normal because of the abundance of grass spawned by last winter’s heavy rains, the center said.