Snow Surprises Hilltoppers, Beach Dwellers

Barefooted surfers carried their boards across a snow-covered beach to get to the water in Huntington Beach this morning, and in La Crescenta people skied and tobogganed down the city’s streets as an Arctic storm front kept its grip on Southern California.

Crowds of motorists eager to see the snow caused a traffic jam at the entrance to Huntington Beach State Park, and in the residential area across Pacific Coast Highway from the park, bulldozers cleared roads of snow and hail so traffic could get through, said state lifeguard Paul Milosch.

“People lost their minds for a while,” Milosch said. “We’ve never had snow on the beach before. They were just abandoning their cars to run out into the snow and take pictures of it. Kids on the way to school were having snowball fights and building snowmen. On the roofs of the houses nearby there was six to 12 inches of snow.”

Snow and hail closed more than a mile of Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach and Huntington Beach for almost two hours this morning after two serious accidents and several fender-benders, authorities said.

Snow fell everywhere in Southern California above a height of 1,500 feet, reported the National Weather Service.

Three inches blanketed La Crescenta, just above Glendale in the San Gabriel Mountains. “People were skiing and tobogganing down the streets here, but the snow was melting by 9 a.m.,” said Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy Steven Cooley.

In Los Angeles, the temperature officially dropped to 41 degrees early this morning--one degree higher than the record low for the day, set in 1962, according to the National Weather Service.

The cold front is slowly moving out of the Southland.