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Temecula vineyard under snow. Posted to Twitter by @grace302.
So yeah, it's going to be more chilly than usual for folks staying out overnight in Pasadena for the Rose Parade. Kind of ironic for a parade that has functioned throughout its history as a promotional piece for balmy Southern California cities to sell their mid-winter allure to frigid Easterners and Midwesterners. It's not really so unusual for the days to be cold (by LA standards) around New Year's, or all that rare for the occasional snow to fall in the basin itself or the San Fernando Valley. Today's snowy views are lower in elevation than most of us are used to seeing, especially out in the Inland Empire. Burbs such as Temecula and Murrieta had snow around the pools and patios this morning. The frosty vineyard above is from the Temecula area, posted to Twitter by @grace302 and quickly snatched up by NBC News, AccuWeather and other media.
An aggressive dust devil threw some tents around outside the Rose Bowl today and caused a handful of minor injuries, as well as some alarmed scattering by onlookers. Here's how it looked via YouTube:
In case this cold snap comes as a surprise to anyone, Los Angeles magazine has prepared what they are calling a brief history of cold weather in LA. Sample:
In January, 1921, a snowstorm covered the roof of Charlie Chaplin Studios in white and rendered La Brea Avenue a slushy mess.
L.A. experienced its lowest temperature on record, 28 degrees, in 1949. Snowfall lasted for three days. An article that ran in the Los Angeles Times reported the “almost unprecedented cold wave… found outlying suburbs and portions of Los Angeles itself whitened yesterday morning by a night-long fall of flakes.”
