Sacramento, California —
Snow fell on California and Pacific Northwest mountains on Saturday as a cold weather storm ripped through the West Coast, cutting short summertime travel and forcing the closing of a portion of a highway that passes through a national park.
After an estimated three inches of snow fell overnight, portions of Highway 89 through California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park were closed, according to the National Weather Service.
Images shared by the government and local authorities depicted a snowfall at Minaret Vista, a vantage point southeast of Yosemite National Park in California’s Sierra Nevada, and a high-altitude white cover on Washington’s Mount Rainier.
It’s not often that you have the opportunity to celebrate your birthday in summer amid a winter wonderland, he stated. It was an unforgettable day that served as a poignant reminder of my passion for helping in this field. Working up here is truly unique, and this is just one of those instances.
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The annual Burning Man event in northern Nevada was delayed by rain, which forced organizers to lock the entrance gate for most of Saturday before restoring it.
Last year’s festival was ruined by torrential rains, which flooded the celebration and its makeshift city.
Also, California’s ski resort Mammoth Mountain had some snow overnight, so campers and hikers should be ready for slippery roads, according to the National Weather Service.
The weather service predicted that rain showers south of Lake Oroville will persist until the evening on Saturday, while record rainfall passed through Redding, Red Bluff, and Stockton in Northern California.
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Overnight, the weather service reported that a dusting of snow occurred over the peak of the Sierra Nevada, specifically around Tioga Pass. According to predictions, the last time snow fell in August was in 2003.
Tioga Pass, which is over 9,900 feet high, is the eastern entrance to Yosemite National Park. However, winter snow that can take up to two months to melt typically closes it for the majority of the year.
Resorts were happy to see signs of winter, even if ski season doesn’t start for at least a few more months.
According to a social media post made by the resort on Friday, “It’s a cool and blustery August day here at Palisades Tahoe, as a storm moves in this afternoon!” The statement hinted to the possibility of our first snowfall of the season.
According to the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, the “anomalous cool conditions” are expected to cover a large portion of the western United States by Sunday morning.
Despite the predicted rain, meteorologists have issued a fire warning due to the cold front’s related high winds.
Concurrently, from Friday morning through Saturday morning, the area affected by the burn scar of the biggest wildfire that California has seen this year was under a flash flood watch.
After erupting in late July close to Chico, a city in the Central Valley, and climbing the western slope of the Sierra, the Park Fire raged across over 671 square miles.
Recent efforts to contain the fire have resulted in it being the fourth-largest on record in California. Within its current boundary, islands of vegetation are still on fire, although evacuation orders have been canceled.
Intense July heat ushered in the state’s wildfire season. The blazes subsisted on the parched vegetation that had grown in the years following a heavy rainfall. There has been a noticeable decline in fire activity as of late.
The forecast predicts that as the cold front moves out, the summer heat will quickly return.
