Springville residents see snow flakes

Light snow flakes fell in Springville Friday morning, but you had to go up about four miles before you actually saw any snow that was sticking to the ground, residents said.

The cold storm that moved into the region Thursday night began dropping light rain late Thursday, with much heavier rainfall reported around 1 a.m.

Local weather observer Greg Chadwell recorded .37 of an inch of rain by 3 p.m. Friday, most of that coming in the early morning.

“Actually, it was pretty good,” he said of the rain.

Tulare County Fire Lt. Tim Franks at the Springville station said a few light flakes fell in town and the hilltops around Springville got a light dusting of snow.

Forecasters with the National Weather Service office in Hanford had predicted less than half of an inch of rain on the Valley floor, but said the mountains would get a good amount of snow.

“We got about a foot,” said an elated Mary Brewer at the Ponderosa Lodge at 7,000 feet above Porterville.

She said it started snowing about 1 a.m. and continued into Friday afternoon. With the latest snow, Brewer said there is more than four feet of snow on the ground.

“We’ve got a group of cross-country skiers up here right now,” she said.

However, it is cold. The low Friday morning was 19 degrees, but by 3 p.m. that had risen to just 22 degrees.

And, it will get colder there as the cold storm system from the Gulf of Alaska moves out Saturday.

The weather service is calling for a low of 13 Saturday morning, with a high of 29 today. The low Saturday night there is predicted to be 14, but sunny.

On the Valley floor, after a low of 31 Friday night, the predicted lows Saturday and Sunday are 30 and 29, respectively. It will begin to warm Monday night.

Daytime highs this weekend will be below normal — 55 degrees both days, but it will warm back into the 60s next week.

Friday’s rainfall brought the season total to 3.70 inches. So far, February has seen just the 0.37 hundreds of an inch. Average rainfall for February is 1.99 and last year 1.62 inches fell.

Heavy snow fell in the Southern California mountains and a possible lightning strike blacked out thousands of people near Los Angeles.