Snow in LA County... Santa Monica Freeway ... Malibu! Happens More Than You Realize. 1980 Similar Winter Storm in the SW. Wondering on the 2019 Hurricane Season

Look how pretty!

Like Kansas or Iowa or maybe New Jersey.

But it's snow in LA county.

Kind of jerky video but it's real and tells the story.

Actually if you look at the date.......

......you'll see it's not yesterday but a few years back.

Usually it snows up in the Mountains.

I lived in LA in the 1980s.

I loved to stare up at the mountains at the snow.

So close and yet so far away.

But it always framed the view so perfectly!

In truth despite what you hear on line...

It used to snow more often in LA ...

Check it out in the Roaring 20s in LA!

Model T Fords!!

In 2016 this article was written....

..asking why it doesn't snow anymore.

Good question.

Easy to say Global Warming.

But I'm wondering if there is more to the story.

Perhaps the heavy traffic in LA over time...

.... created small heat islands of sorts as in Atlanta?

Something to research or think upon.

https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/why-hasnt-it-snowed-in-los-angeles-since-1962

Look at all those years with snowfall totals.

1882, 1877 (official record)

1913, 1921, 1922, 1926 snow flakes fell.

1944, 1949 and 1957 big hurricane years.

1962 was a quiet hurricane year.

1926 Great Miami, Bahama and Cuban hurricanes.

This year Cuba had a recent rare tornado.

Hmnnn

What is going on with the world?

Did Lex Luthor finally figure out how to control the weather?

Maybe it will snow on the Oscars?

Can you imagine winter coats over those beautiful gowns?

I don't think there will be a snowy ending like in the movies.

But there has been much speculation on the recent snow.

Maybe snow is back in style?

Hey it snowed in Burbank in 2011!

February, same timing as this year.

"Never seen snow" 

No...not really true but it sounds good.

Snow happens.

It seems it used to happen more often.

And there were less people there to see it in 1913!

So don't believe everything you read.

I lived in LA a long time.

I never saw snow.

My friends in Torrance near Rolling Hills saw some.

(higher elevation in Rolling Hills than LA Basin)

Malibu has mountains.

LA is a basin... flat, surrounded by mountains.

Kids drive up to Frazier Park usually to see snow.

It's beautiful there.

Arrowhead is also beautiful.

In Palm Springs you can sunbathe by the pool...

...or take a ride up to the ski resorts covered in snow.

It's not like it's snowing in Key West...

But West Hollywood saw snowflakes...

..and the Valley towns of Northridge and Thousand Oaks.

In 1980 below there was snow near Crowley Lake.

Great picture, very Ansel Adams.

But Crowley Lake is upstate.

But it was 1980.

So in 1980 I lived in Long Beach California. My husband and my best friend's husband took the students from the Chabad School in Westminster on a weekend trip to Phoenix for Shabbos (the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday) and then to the Grand Canyon on Sunday. That was the plan. My best friend Pesha and I had both had little girls the summer before so we decided to have one long Slumber Party and hang out and talk life, football and motherhood as we usually did when together. It became a memorable trip for the students but one long weekend in hell for the parents in those days before kids having beepers or cell phones. They safely got to Chabad of Phoenix and set up for Shabbos without any problem. However, KTLA was running stories nonstop on the news about severe flooding in Phoenix and in those days before you could look on Twitter to see where the flooding was or put on The Weather Channel basically every parent called us both twice hysterical asking if the kids were okay. Yes, they were okay... a different part of Phoenix, I was assured they were fine and having fun and safe. 

Moving along they packed up and headed off in a huge Winnebago that one of the parents had lent the two young Rabbis to take the class to the Grand Canyon. In a few hours the calls began again as the same parents who heard on the news that there was some sort of blizzard near the Grand Canyon and roads were closed and motorists were stranded. My ex husband called me deliriously happy because they had gotten to the Grand Canyon and it was covered in fresh snow looking more beautiful than he had ever seen it and being a LA kid he had been to the Grand Canyon often. I asked if the kids were okay? He said they were "thrilled it was snowing and many had not seen snow in their lives" and then babbled on again about the layers of snow shining in the sunlight and the blue skies and how he wished I could see it. No Facetime then or Facebook Live huh? It looked a lot like this scene below:

I posted that picture the other day.

Beautiful isn't it?

Because this year it also snowed there as it did in 1980.

So because the roads were closed behind them rather than sticking to the plan they decided to drive up through Vegas (not stopping just driving through) which the school had said they didn't want them to do but hey the roads behind them were closed so it seemed like a good idea. I told each parent that called that they were safe from the blizzard just as they were safe from the flooding in Phoenix. It was one hell of a winter storm. My best friend and I sat by the heater at night (which is what she said they do in Buffalo) as it was really cold in LA and we had fun and were happy the parents had stopped calling to check and the babies were asleep and life was good.

http://cms.sbcounty.gov/parks/parks/calicoghosttown.aspx

Then the storm assaulted the High Desert to the North of LA and the road into LA was closed due to snow, high winds and they shut down the Grapevine and every other road down to LA. The parents called again.... and I told them again the boys were fine they had spent the night in a motel on the other side of the mountain pass that was shut down to any high profile vehicles and let me tell you it was a big winnebago so it wasn't going anywhere! On the 2nd day of being stranded there they decided to take the kids to a ghost town similar to this but possibly this ghost town; the kids had a blast. The parents were frustrated, worried and mind you LA also was hit with extremely bad weather and it seemed those kids were never coming home. Finally on the 2nd night there they decided to book them passage in the morning on AMTRAK at the nearest point they could get on the train and may I say that to this day one of the most exciting things about the trip they took was that they got to go on a train... a real train. In those days LA kids didn't take subways or trains much and well... it was a surprise and they loved it. Memorable trip. So memorable I can never forget how bad the weather was in February of 1980 in all the same places the winter weather has been nuts in February of 2019!

My best friend and I and our babies were fine. The husbands were fine, though probably tired of being with their Middle School students for days. The parents were happy to see their long, lost sons. The kids were excited because those LA kids got to see SNOW, they drove through SNOW and they saw the Grand Canyon covered in SNOW and they drove through Las Vegas and saw all the bright lights and then they went to a Ghost Town and then they got to go on a train. Finally someone drove up and carefully drove the Winnebago back despite high winds but legally and LA continued to have crazy weather the rest of 1980. 

I have to wonder on what the parallel is with the this coming hurricane season to the similar winter of 1980 in the desert Southwest that included snow, flooding, high winds and if I remember right fires and mudslides. 

Very busy year.

Wild wicked Hurricane Allen.

Taking up the Caribbean Sea...

...down near the Yucatan.

Made a beeline for the desert SW kind of...

The season started late....

...it was very busy deep into November.

It was considered a Neutral Year.

Coming off a weak El Nino based on some sites.

Something to wonder on...

As for today.

It's still February.

It's still winter.

We still only got real snow in November.

Seattle has been stealing the show.

Minneapolis has gotten it's fair share.

And Vegas saw snow on two different occasions.

Keep watching.

Winter ain't over.

Yes there are wild whispers online of wicked winter weather coming.

Some will most likely say "unprecedented" or "historic"

Someone online said a hurricane like winter storm was forming.

Isn't clickbait grand?

We have only officially been collecting weather data since the 1800s.

The history of Earth is what climate is all about.

The 1700s and 1800s produced wicked Caribbean Hurricanes.

Jamaica got trounced.

And back before man began settling the LA Basin...

...it seems to have snowed more than it does now.

Have a great weekend!

It's rainy here in Raleigh...

...though warming up into the low 70s on Sunday.

Then it dives down again into colder weather.

It's the way of the world.

It's the way weather works.

And often parallels exist... 

We learn from weather patterns of the past.

Will 1980 be someone's analog year?

Who knows.

We are a month of two away from those early forecasts.

But just remember.........

........last year they said cooler temperatures in the Atlantic...

could bring a quieter hurricane season.

Then the temperatures warmed up.

Anyone who went through Florence or Michael....

...will tell you it was a Hurricane Season from hell.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram.