Dazzling satellite photos show California mountains before and after snowstorms
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- Satellite photos show California mountains transformed from brown to snow-capped just four days after the season’s first major atmospheric river.
- The storm pushed nearly all major reservoirs at or above historical levels and brought greener landscapes statewide between Oct. 12 and Oct. 16.
The season’s first major storm brought much-needed precipitation to California and transformed the state’s mountain peaks with snow and reservoirs with rain.
The deluge of moisture left all but a few of the state’s biggest reservoirs at or above historical levels for this time of year and may have pushed back fire season in Los Angeles significantly, experts said.
The image below, comprised of satellite photos captured by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite, shows the state from space on Sunday, left and again on Thursday, right.
Across the Golden State, the landscape got greener in just a few days. And in the mountains, brown peaks were replaced by brilliant white — not just in California, but stretching into Nevada and Utah.
Time-lapse videos from the ALERTCalifornia and UC San Diego show snow brought on by the first major winter storm of 2025 in the Sierra Nevada.
Zooming in on the Sierra Nevada range, the image below shows the Central and Southern Sierra before and after the storm. The satellite images were provided by National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellites.
From Mono Lake and Mammoth Mountain at the top of the image to Sequoia National Park at the bottom, the landscape had been transformed in just three days. The mountains went from parched on Sunday to snow-capped on Wednesday.
This week’s storm, classified as a weak, or Level 1, atmospheric river brought enough moisture to Southern California’s drought-stricken landscape to delay fire season for weeks, if not months, said Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Trees, grasses and plants that make up Southern California’s natural landscape will absorb a lot of moisture from the rain, making them less prone to burn — at least for a while.
“It doesn’t take very many AR storms to really help us have a normal water year and recover from drought,” Ralph said, referencing atmospheric rivers. “This is starting the season off on a favorable foot.”
Times staff writers Julia Wick and Hannah Fry contributed to this report.
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