Heat Waves, Wildfires, Snow: California Endures a Summer of Extremes

An unusually cold weather system from the Gulf of Alaska interrupted summer along the West Coast on Saturday, bringing snow to mountains in California and the Pacific Northwest and prompting the closure of part of a highway that runs through a national park.

Parts of Highway 89 through Lassen Volcanic National Park in California were shut down after an estimated 3 inches of snow fell overnight, according to the National Weather Service.

Photos posted by the agency and local authorities showed a high-elevation blanket of white on Mount Rainier in Washington along with a dusting of snow at Minaret Vista, a lookout point southeast of Yosemite National Park in California’s Sierra Nevada.

Madera County Deputy Sheriff Larry Rich said it was “definitely unexpected” to see snow at Minaret Vista in August.

“It’s not every day you get to spend your birthday surrounded by a winter wonderland in the middle of summer,” he said in a statement. “It made for a day I won’t soon forget, and a unique reminder of why I love serving in this area. It’s just one of those moments that makes working up here so special.”

In northern Nevada, rain fell in the runup to the annual Burning Man festival, prompting organizers to close the entrance gate for most of Saturday before reopening. Torrential rains upended last year’s festival, turning the celebration and its temporary city into a muddy quagmire.

It also snowed overnight on Mammoth Mountain, a ski destination in California, with the National Weather Service warning hikers and campers to prepare for slick roads.

Record rainfall moved through Redding, Red Bluff and Stockton in Northern California on Saturday, the weather service said, and rain showers south of Lake Oroville were expected to continue into the evening.

A dusting of snow fell overnight on the crest of the Sierra Nevada around Tioga Pass, the weather service said. August snow has not occurred there since 2003, forecasters said.

Tioga Pass rises to more than 9,900 feet and serves as the eastern entryway to Yosemite. But it is usually closed much of each year by winter snow that can take one or two months to clear.

While the start of ski season is at least several months away, the hint of winter was welcomed by resorts.

“It’s a cool and blustery August day here at Palisades Tahoe, as a storm that could bring our first snowfall of the season moves in this afternoon!” the resort said in a social media post Friday.

The “anomalous cool conditions” will spread over much of the western U.S. by Sunday morning, according to the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

Despite the expected precipitation, forecasters also warned of fire danger because of gusty winds associated with the passage of the cold front.

At the same time, a flash flood watch was issued for the burn scar of California’s largest wildfire so far this year from Friday morning through Saturday morning.

The Park Fire roared across more than 671 square miles after it erupted in late July near the Central Valley city of Chico and climbed up the western slope of the Sierra.

The fire became California’s fourth-largest on record, but it has been substantially tamed recently. Islands of vegetation continue to burn within its existing perimeter, but evacuation orders have been canceled.

The state’s wildfire season got off to an intense start amid extreme July heat. Blazes fed on dried-out vegetation that grew during back-to-back wet years. Fire activity has recently fallen into a relative lull.

Forecasts call for a rapid return of summer heat as the cold front departs.