|
Source
Snow falls on San Francisco By: The Associated Press 02/26/11 7:20 AM Hilly areas of San Francisco got a rare light dusting of snow, the National Weather Service said Saturday. Snow fell briefly late Friday and early Saturday on The City's Twin Peaks neighborhood and some other areas with higher elevations, meteorologist Mark Strobin said. "A little bit up in the hills," Strobin told The Associated Press. "It snowed down to about 400 feet." But there was only rain downtown and in other other areas of the near sea level city, and the snow that did fall disappeared rapidly. The City last saw snow on the ground in 1976, when an inch fell. Strobin said the higher regions might have had snow dustings since that measureable snow fell 35 years ago. He said it was still too early to tell how this event will be recorded. Strobin, who is based in Monterey, Calif., said that city also got a rare dusting of snow. The storm system moving across Northern California responsible for San Francisco's snow also dumped more than 2 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Just the idea of possible snow had the tech-savvy city looking skyward with anticipation. One blogger posted a pretend ski map, noting possible beginner, intermediate and expert runs in The City's hilly Bernal Heights neighborhood. A newly created website — isitsnowinginsfyet.com — gives a simple answer for anyone who is wondering. On Friday, the storm prompted San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee to take precautionary measures. He urged residents to watch out for icy road conditions, and, if possible, avoid driving during the storm's peak. The city's public works department was planning to offer free sandbags and emergency crews were on stand-by. For snow to fall and accumulate in San Francisco, temperatures must drop to 36 degrees, precipitation must be falling and the ground must be chilled for several days beforehand, said Steve Anderson, also a National Weather Service forecaster. Though it rarely gets that cold in San Francisco, where the surrounding bay and Pacific Ocean generally keeps temperatures moderate, temperatures in San Francisco were expected to drop into the 30s overnight, according to the National Weather Service.
Snow flurries drifted briefly across Bay Area early Saturday morning as near-freezing temperatures wrapped the region By John Boudreau jbouderau@mercurynews.com Posted: 02/26/2011 08:41:51 AM PST Light snow flurries swirled across the Bay Area in the early hours of the morning Saturday but dissipated before most people slipped out of their warm beds. According to the National Weather Service, low temperatures wrapped the region overnight, with San Jose hitting 33 degrees, which it had not done on this date since 1897. Downtown San Francisco registered 37 degrees, which hadn't happened since 1952, while San Francisco International Airport reported 36 degrees for the first time since 1971. The thin layer of snow fell between midnight and 2 a.m. "We did get some flurries overnight all over" the Bay Area, weather service meteorologist Chris Stumpf said. "We had reports of a light dusting near Monterey Bay. We actually had a guy in San Jose say he first thought it was frost but he went outside and saw that it was a light dusting of snow." Snow can occur with temperatures as warm as 38 degrees, he said. The weather service does not expect any more snowy experiences near sea level this weekend, though there will be showers along the coast today and more cold temperatures Sunday morning. Temperatures are expected to rise Monday and rain could return Tuesday and Wednesday; in other words, a more familiar Bay Area winter weather pattern. Contact John Boudreau at 408-278-3496.
Snow appears in San Francisco, but will it continue? Posted: 02/26/2011 07:23:03 AM PST Snow fell on San Francisco's Twin Peaks and Merced Heights neighborhoods early this morning, according to a National Weather Service forecaster. A resident near Shields and Arch streets, located about 400 feet above sea level in the Merced Heights neighborhood, reported that snow had lightly dusted the rooftop of his home at about 12:30 a.m., forecaster Rick Canepa said. "The air mass of this storm is very cold compared to other systems," Canepa said. "I'm not surprised" about the snowfall, Canepa said. Bay Area Twitter users celebrated the icy arrival online with tweets, including "SNOWMG! It's snowing on Twin Peaks..." and "Flurries...the 'snow' has arrived in SF." Another resident near Duboce Triangle said he saw wet snowflakes in the air just before 1 a.m., though they reportedly didn't stick to the ground, Canepa said. The snow sightings mark the first flurries spotted in the city since 1976. Canepa said that, at 30,000 feet, the storm's central temperature was measured at approximately -31 degrees Fahrenheit. "Usually what's way up high is a reflection of what's going on at the surface," he said. "This is one of the coldest systems we've seen in years." But Canepa said that conditions are expected to warm up throughout the weekend, making additional San Francisco snowflake sightings pretty unlikely. "I'm not saying that it won't happen," he said. "But it's certainly not as probable."
The Bay Area's Great Wait for Snow continues By Bruce Newman bnewman@mercurynews.com Posted: 02/25/2011 04:56:53 PM PST No two snowflakes are ever alike, and in San Jose's case, about as rarely seen. So when the first hint came a week ago that there could be snow on the ground this weekend, the seven-day forecast was not the weatherman's friend. "We've had quite a few calls," National Weather Service meteorologist Chris Stumpf said Friday. "But we're all pretty excited. It's kind of a big event." No kidding. The last time it snowed here, in the winter of 1976, the supercomputer that meteorologists now use to predict snowstorms a week ahead of time had just been invented. And after a hurricane of hyperventilation this week, the beleaguered Stumpf may have wished it would just hurry up and dump some fresh powder already. Everywhere you went across the Bay Area, the prospect of snow made Sunnyvale feel like Sun Valley, Alviso like Aspen. Children consulted barometers, then went to bed praying for low pressure fronts. And with a blast of arctic air bearing down on Northern California, it appeared their prayers might be answered. But did it snow? In the North Bay, yes. On Mount Hamilton, of course. In Silicon Valley, not yet. The possibility of seeing flakes in San Francisco -- apart from the ones that reside there year round -- created such a flurry of excitement that a website appeared called IsItSnowingInSFYet.com. All of the 156,251 hits the site had received by 4 p.m. got the same answer: No. For reasons not immediately apparent to anyone living south of Millbrae, across the Internet's vast electronic constellation, there was no www.IsItSnowingInSJYet.com. :-( At Big O Tires in Los Gatos on Friday morning, assistant manager Linda Pagan acknowledged there had not been a run on the store's snow tires. In fact, she hadn't sold any. "I'd like to see it," she said, although it wasn't clear whether she was referring to the white stuff or the green stuff. Just then, a customer excitedly exclaimed, "That looks like snow!" Everyone in the store turned as if they were having their necks rotated, and, sure enough, a fine mist backlit by morning sunlight looked like snow crystals. But it wasn't. Across town at the Purple Onion Cafe, co-owner Steve Angelo allowed that "it would be kinda cool" if it did snow, although "kinda" wasn't going to get the job done. He was counting on the town's lofty elevation to blow up a blizzard -- Los Gatos sits at 390 feet, compared with San Jose at 82 -- and its residents' lofty incomes to handle whatever came. "We probably have more four-wheel-drive vehicles per capita than other parts of the country," Angelo noted. "They need those to get their lattes in the morning." They weren't likely to need them any more than usual Saturday morning, according to meteorologist Bob Benjamin of the National Weather Service in Monterey. Temperatures across the valley were expected to dip into the low 30s overnight, but Benjamin had bad news for kids expecting to build their first snowman. "I don't know if the ground will be cold enough to support any accumulation of snow," he said. That could melt the plans for a snowball fight between Nolan Weger and classmate Mason Leece, both 10. After snow skiing at Bear Valley earlier in the week, you might have thought Mason -- a fourth-grader at St. Martin of Tours School in San Jose -- would be jaded about seeing the white stuff in San Jose. But rocketing across his own front lawn on one of the family's two sleds sounded way cool. "That just would be awesome," he said. "I'm excited to see snow where I live. That way I don't have to drive a long way to see it." Just in case, Caltrans blanketed Santa Clara County with 30 snowplows and even more spreaders able to put cinders on icy roads. The cinders were expected to provide a boost to the local carwash economy, depressed by recent rains. Surfaces were expected to be slipperier at the Highway 17 summit above Los Gatos, but Caltrans crews were poised for whatever came, with a snowplow at the peak and crews on standby armed with sand. "We're ready," proclaimed Caltrans spokeswoman Susana Z. Cruz. "We have been doing storm patrol for awhile now, and have our crews on call 24/7 during inclement weather." Contact Bruce Newman at 408-920-5004.
San Francisco snow: Snow falls in SF, Monterey and is likely to dust Los Angeles-area foothills February 26, 2011 | 4:28 am Snow has fallen in San Francisco, Monterey, and the San Joaquin Valley, and the intensely cold arctic storm was expected to bring snow to the foothills across the Los Angeles area Saturday, the National Weather Service said. The storm was expected to pass into Southern California around sunrise Saturday, bringing snow to levels as low as 1,500 feet. Snowflakes could fall on the the Santa Monica Mountains, in the Antelope and the Santa Clarita valleys, and in the higher elevations on the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley, such as Porter Ranch, said Curt Kaplan, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. As for foothill communities like La Crescenta and Altadena, “absolutely, they’ll be getting some snow for sure, at least a dusting of it,” Kaplan said. In San Francisco, Friday's sunny skies turned snowy in hilly neighborhoods like Twin Peaks after dark, according to meteorologist Mark Strobin of the National Weather Service in Monterey. "So far, it's just been a dusting," Strobin said. Trained spotters for the weather service have reported snowflakes sticking to the wooden fences and beams, but there have not been any reports of snow sticking to the ground in the hills, much less at sea level in the city, Strobin said. Still, snow has fallen at sea level just outside the weather service's offices in Monterey. "It's pretty exciting," Strobin said, although the snow melted once it hit the ground. The prospect of the first significant snowfall in San Francisco in 35 years brought much anticipation this week. The website http://isitsnowinginsfyet.com/ heralded the snowflakes' arrival overnight by posting images of snowmen. The arctic storm also brought snow to the San Joaquin Valley city of Arvin, at an elevation of 400 feet, and in the hills above the Central California coastal city of San Luis Obispo, Kaplan said. As to whether the storm would be cold enough for snowflakes to dust the ground near the Hollywood sign, chances were looking slim. Kaplan said the weather service has updated its forecast to say snowfall in the L.A. area would be as low as 1,500 feet, higher than a previous forecast of 1,000 feet. The Hollywood sign on Mt. Lee is at an elevation of about 1,600 feet. "I don't think it'll be down to the Hollywood sign," Kaplan said. "But who knows?" -- Rong-Gong Lin II
Storm moves out, but snow possible Saturday in L.A. coastal foothills February 26, 2011 A rainstorm moved through Southern California overnight, but the region is still expecting cold temperatures, frost and the potential for snow in low-lying areas. According to the National Weather Service on Saturday, the storm dumped 1 to 2 inches of rain in the foothills and about half an inch of rain in the L.A. basin. The Sepulveda Boulevard onramp to the 105 Freeway was closed due to flooding, and rainy conditions may have played a role in a fatal freeway crash overnight in Sun Valley, officials said. Long Beach fire officials rescued a man from the raging Los Angeles River early Saturday morning. The snow level dropped to 1,500 feet in parts of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, and the weather service said the level in Los Angeles County foothills could drop to 1,000-2,000 feet depending on conditions. Snowflakes could fall on the Santa Monica Mountains, in the Antelope and the Santa Clarita valleys, and in the higher elevations on the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley, such as Porter Ranch, said Curt Kaplan, a weather service meteorologist in Oxnard. As for foothill communities such as La Crescenta and Altadena, "absolutely, they'll be getting some snow for sure, at least a dusting of it," Kaplan said. Sunday should see cold temperatures and mostly sunny skies, forecasters said. In San Francisco, Friday's sunny skies turned snowy in hilly neighborhoods such as Twin Peaks after dark, according to meteorologist Mark Strobin of the National Weather Service in Monterey. Trained spotters for the weather service reported snowflakes sticking to the wooden fences and beams, but there were no reports of snow sticking to the ground in the hills, much less at sea level in the city, Strobin said. Still, snow fell at sea level just outside the weather service's offices in Monterey. "It's pretty exciting," Strobin said, although the snow melted once it hit the ground. The prospect of the first significant snowfall in San Francisco in 35 years brought much anticipation this week. The website http://isitsnowinginsfyet.com/ heralded the snowflakes' arrival overnight by posting images of snowmen. The arctic storm also brought snow to the San Joaquin Valley city of Arvin, at an elevation of 400 feet, and in the hills above the Central California coastal city of San Luis Obispo, Kaplan said. As to whether the storm would be cold enough for snowflakes to dust the ground near the Hollywood sign, chances were looking slim. Kaplan said the weather service has updated its forecast to say snowfall in the L.A. area would be as low as 1,500 feet, higher than a previous forecast of 1,000 feet. The Hollywood sign on Mt. Lee is at an elevation of about 1,600 feet. "I don't think it'll be down to the Hollywood sign," Kaplan said. "But who knows?" -- Rong-Gong Lin II and Shelby Grad |