Travelers on the 15 Freeway between Nevada and Southern California were impacted by heavy snow fall on Thursday.
Videos taken by drivers on the freeway showed the intense snowfall hitting their windshields on a road that had not yet been treated for the slushy weather.
One such driver, who posted a video of the storm to X, said he got ‘caught in a bit of a snow storm,’ but was pleased that California had opted not to close the road.
According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, several roads were closed elsewhere, causing pauses to businesses that rely on the transportation of agricultural goods from California across the border into Arizona.
The video was recorded several miles south of an agricultural checkpoint in San Bernardino County, California. The driver had just crossed the state line into Mountain Pass, Nevada, which has an elevation of 4,730 feet.
California is beginning 2024 with a below-normal mountain snowpack a year after it had one of its best starts in decades with storms that eventually pulled the state out of drought
Prior to Thursday’s storm, a winter weather advisory was issued for the mountains of Los Angeles County, which border San Bernardino.
The National Weather Service reported that the winter storm system had deposited between five and eight inches of snow.
In Nevada, a storm deposited five inches of snow in Lee Canyon before continuing on its path – the area was under winter weather advisory until early Thursday morning.
NWS says a second winter storm is expected to arrive in SoCal over the weekend, which will likely bring more snow and moderate to strong winds.
Despite the snow near Los Angeles, California has gotten less snow than usual this winter, which is impacting the Sierra Nevada in Northern California.
The limited winter weather could spell trouble for a state that relies on melted snow pack for a significant portion of its water supply.
The California Department of Water Resources reported Tuesday that the whole of the Golden State has an average snowpack just about 25 percent of its annual average.
However, despite the potentially alarming lack of snow in some parts of California, state officials have also told Californians to brace for potential ‘climate whiplash,’ a phenomenon that includes potentially dangerous flooding after months of drought.
A winter weather system moved from California into Nevada earlier this week, leaving several counties under weather warnings
A snow plow clears a road in Mammoth Lakes on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024 – Last winter, California experienced record high amounts of snow
Last winter, California experienced record high amounts of snow, enough to take major swaths of the state out of what had been a long drought.
The state’s snowpack catapulted to 237 percent higher than the yearly average. This season seems like it will look different.
Thursday’s winter storm and the one expected over the weekend arrive just days after a storm in the eastern Pacific Ocean beat up the California coastline with enormous waves and an ocean swell that reached as high as 20 feet.
Eight onlookers in Ventura County were injured as they watched the water walls crash into the coast.