It’s a White Christmas for California — at least in the mountains, where a slew of winter storms has left behind glittering drifts of beautiful snow just in time for the holiday.
Coastal residents in both Northern and Southern California are taking advantage of the opportunity to drive to popular snow spots so that they can enjoy the rare spectacle.
Near Lake Arrowhead, in San Bernardino County, the newly-reopened Santa’s Village theme park hosted its first Christmas Eve in years. The Orange County Register reports that delighted tourists from throughout Southern California enjoyed the fresh six inches of powdery snow that a Friday night storm had dropped on the area.
“Today has been the happiest day of the entire season,” the Register quoted the park’s manager, Erich Killingsworth. “Everybody’s in that legitimate Christmas spirit.”
In the Central Valley, the Fresno Bee reports, tourists in Shaver Lake in the Sierra National Forest enjoyed an eight-inch snowfall on Friday night. Mike Cockerel, of Grover Beach, told the Bee that his family planned to stay in the snow through Christmas before returning to the coastal sunshine.
The winter storm arrived thanks to a northward movement of moist subtropical air from Mexico, following a cool period that hit California, like much of the rest of the country, as frigid polar air shifted south for several days.
Much of the precipitation fell as rain on the California coast, causing flash flooding in some areas. The snowfall on the mountains bodes well for the spring, as California hopes to snap five years of drought. Already, the winter rains and snows have prompted an increase in water allocations to farmers.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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