I have some bad news for Angelenos dreaming of a White Christmas this year: you were probably born a half-century too late.Snow once fell on the Los Angeles coastal plain with some regularity - on average, about once per decade. Since official records were first kept in 1877, the downtown Los Angeles weather station observed measurable snowfall three times, in 1882, 1932, and 1949, and news reports recorded snowfall elsewhere in the Los Angeles Basin in 1913, 1921, 1922, 1926, 1944, 1957, 1962 - and then never again, for 54 years running.
Los Angeles is in the middle of a 54-year snow drought.
Yes, Los Angeles is in the middle of a 54-year snow drought, and with each passing year snowfall becomes increasingly less likely - although it's still technically possible in 2016. (And indeed, snowfall at higher elevations and in inland valleys is more common; a 1989 system dropped several inches on the San Fernando Valley but missed the coastal plain, and a 2007 storm dusted the canyons above Malibu with powder and dropped hail-like graupel on L.A.s Westside.)
Given the right meteorology we could still have a White Christmas,' Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told me. In 2050, no way!
The San Gabriel community of Monterey Park after a 1949 snowstorm. Photo courtesy of the Monterey Park History Collection, Monterey Park Bruggemeyer Library.
Its no movie magic - thats real snow on Hollywoods La Brea Blvd. in 1921. The Charlie Chaplin Studios (now home to the Jim Henson Company) are on the right. Photo courtesy of the Security Pacific National Bank Collection - Los Angeles Public Library.
More Weather History
Has a Hurricane Ever Made Landfall in California?
A Brief History of the Santa Ana Winds
Of course, snowfall has always been relatively unusual on the coastal lowlands of Southern California (or at least it has been since the dawn of the Holocene). Because of our proximity to the Pacific, Patzert said, below-freezing temperatures are very rare. Our Mediterranean climate makes us mellow meteorologically. It smooths out the extremes in weather. It would take the collision of moist marine air with an extreme excursion of the Polar Jet Stream that brings below freezing temperatures to blanket Los Angeles in white.
An L.A. blizzard has always inhabited the margins of possibility, but a snow drought of this length seems to be unprecedented.
An L.A. blizzard, in other words, has always inhabited the margins of possibility, but a snow drought of this length seems to be unprecedented. For generations, Angelenos could count on waking up, at least once or twice in their lives, to a wintry scene: children pelting each other with snowballs beneath powder-dusted palm trees.
A Jan. 12, 1882, snowfall left the town's old timers perfectly thunderstruck, the Los Angeles Times reported, although the paper did acknowledge two previous snowfall events over the preceding twenty years. The Los Angeles Herald, meanwhile, couldn't help chiding Southern California's boosters for their over-the-top promotion of the region's Mediterranean climate, asking, how's that for Semi-Tropicalia? Atop a Spring Street jewelry store, someone gathered a 15-pound snowball (reports did not say how that ball was used), and a group of sport hunters suited up to track rabbits in the snow-covered countryside - only to watch the snow melt beneath their feet before reaching the rabbit grounds.
The 1949 snow storm transformed the San Fernando Valley community of Canoga Park into a winter wonderland. Photo courtesy of the USC Libraries - Los Angeles Examiner Collection.
Photo courtesy of the USC Libraries - California Historical Society Collection.
Fifty years later, on Jan. 15, 1932, what the Times described as a genuine, old-fashioned Midwest snow flurry made national headlines and brought a record 2.0 inches of snow to downtown Los Angeles. Albert Einstein, a visiting professor at Caltech, bemoaned the weather, noting to the Times that he and his wife left Germany for sunshine. On the frozen streets and sidewalks of downtown Los Angeles, six Angelenos slipped and were hospitalized, including a traffic officer who fell in front of a streetcar (his injuries were not fatal.)
The 1932 snowstorm incited madness across the Southland. Coyotes emerged from the foothills of the San Fernando Valley, and in Pasadena students rioted when a snowball fight spiraled out of control.
This freak weather incited madness across the Southland. In the San Fernando Valley, coyotes emerged from the foothills in unusual numbers; terrified residents called the police, who shot several of the animals. In the San Gabriel Valley, a riot broke out in front of Pasadena Junior College when students streamed out of their classrooms to lob snowballs. As the icy missiles flew across Colorado Boulevard, windshields were cracked, street lamps smashed, and spectators bombarded. Four police officers soon arrived to disperse the crowd, but the students surrounded them, let the air out of their patrol cars' tires, and pelted the officers with rock-filled snowballs. Only when a reinforcement army of some 30 policemen arrived, armed with nightsticks and tear-gas shotgun shells, did the riot subside. Seven rioters were jailed and two bystanders hospitalized. Faculty members professed bafflement, noting that the students were usually so well behaved.
Still, no storm incited as much wintry chaos as a January 1949 system that lingered for three days and dropped several inches of snow on the lowlands. Icy conditions forced the CHP to close the Pacific Coast Highway. White powder dusted the tops of palm trees from Santa Monica to Laguna Beach. In the San Gabriel Valley, orange growers burned smudge pots in a futile effort to protect their crops from frost, and in the San
