Arctic Blast chills Santa Cruz Mountains
SANTA CRUZ - Every time we think we've "seen it all," something new comes along to prove us wrong. Would you believe snow flurries on the beaches of Santa Cruz County?
The National Weather Service tells us the last time "significant snow fall" was recorded in the San Francisco, San Jose and Monterey Bay areas was on February 6 1976.
The cause: an "Arctic Blast" from Canada.
Bay NewsVideo's Mark Jeannette was monitoring the weather system from our Santa Cruz County newsroom.
"We were keeping a close watch via radar," he said. "The temperature was dropping into the low 30's and we saw the system was going to hit around sunrise. We were warming up the N.A.V. (News Assault Vehicle) and we were getting flurries one block from the beach".
He couldn't get the camera out fast enough to get the beach snow.
Jeannette said it was like "the skies were teasing us." So he traveled up State Highway 17, a major link between Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties.
At the 1,000 foot level, the snow was falling, like, well, like snow.
"Iit was like the high Sierras just 10 miles from the coast," he said.
Bay NewsVideo clients started receiving feeds by 9 a.m. Because of the Bay NewsVideo "Pre Alerts", clients were able to get crews rolling to the area while BNV got the first snow tape to those stations.
12-20-98