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Video: Rare snow delights residents in California as winter storm intensifies
San Francisco also broke a 132-year record for the lowest February 24 temperature ever documented as the mercury dipped to 4 degrees Celsius
The Hollywood sign is seen through a mix of fog and dust snow during a rare cold winter storm in Los Angeles, California. — Reuters
A slow-moving winter storm intensified over California on Friday, triggering the first blizzard warning in parts of the Los Angeles area in 30 years and creating the extraordinary sight of snowflakes swirling around the iconic Hollywood sign.
Snow and freezing rain pushed into the Golden State from the north, where it dumped about 10 inches (25 cm) of powder on Portland, Oregon, earlier in the week. California's snow was heaviest in the Cascades, Sierra Nevada and coastal mountains.
But even residents in lower-elevation foothills of California's central coast and the San Francisco Bay area awoke Friday morning to 1 to 3 inches of snow.
"The last time we saw snow like this in the low elevations was in 2011," said Sarah McCorkle, a National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist in Monterey, California. "It's a relatively rare event."
A car is covered in heavy snow in the town of Mount Baldy, California, on February 24. — AFP
San Francisco also broke a 132-year record for the lowest February 24 temperature ever documented as the mercury dipped to 39 degrees Fahrenheit (4 Celsius) on Friday morning, one degree lower than the previous record set in 1891, McCorkle said.
The storm was expected to linger over California through Saturday, the NWS said.
A massive low-pressure system driven from the Arctic was responsible for the unusual conditions, said Bryan Jackson, a forecaster at the NWS Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.
In Southern California, "this is a rare case of a cold, significant storm event," Jackson said.
In a sight that must have delighted many Angelenos, snowflakes even fell around the Hollywood sign atop Mount Lee in the hills above the city, known for its sunny days and palm trees.
At an elevation of 1,500 feet (457 meters), the sign - with its giant, white-block lettering visible for miles around the city - was close to the threshold for the formation of snow during the storm, Jackson said.
Reuters
Craig Robert Young, an actor who starred in the television series Charmed and The Last Ship, lives in Hollywood Hills within eyeshot of the famed sign. He said he was amazed to see snow swirling there.
"I moved here from the UK 20 years ago, and haven't seen snow since," said Young, 46. "I actually had a snowball fight. It brought me back to my childhood."
In nearby San Bernardino County, the sheriff's office posted a video clip on Twitter showing deputies lying in the snow, flapping arms and legs to make "snow angels," while also urging residents to stay off roads.
Whem a storm dumped snow in Portland, Oregon, a 64-acre zoo — which is home to over 2,500 animals — had to close its doors on Thursday and Friday.
Some of the zoo's furry residents, however, enjoyed the winter day:
'At the mercy of the skies'
Snowy road conditions and high winds prompted the California Highway Patrol (CHP) and state transportation officials to close Interstate 5, a major highway connecting Los Angeles to points north, along a 40-mile (64.4 km) mountain stretch known as the Grapevine.
It remained unclear how long the closure would last, according to CHP officer Anthony Daulton.
"We're at the mercy of the skies right now," he said.
A separate storm that clobbered the U.S. Plains, Midwest and Great Lakes regions earlier this week blew out to the Atlantic on Friday after passing over New England, the weather service said. More than 750,000 homes and businesses, mostly in Michigan, remained without electricity.
Even before the latest storm, much of California has experienced an unusually rainy, chilly winter, starting with a spate of deadly "atmospheric river" storms that unleashed widespread flooding, felled trees and triggered mudslides in a state long plagued by drought and wildfires.
Powerful winter storms, interspersed with extreme heat and dry spells, are symptoms of climate change, experts say, and growing more frequent and intense.
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