{"id":8762,"date":"2025-10-17T00:14:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T00:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/8762\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T00:14:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T00:14:19","slug":"dazzling-satellite-photos-california-mountains-before-after-snowstorms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/8762\/","title":{"rendered":"Dazzling satellite photos: California mountains before, after snowstorms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The season\u2019s first major storm brought much-needed precipitation to California and transformed the state\u2019s mountain peaks with snow and reservoirs with rain. <\/p>\n

The deluge of moisture left all but a few of the state\u2019s biggest reservoirs<\/a> at or above historical levels for this time of year and may have pushed back fire season in Los Angeles significantly, experts said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Across the Golden State, the landscape got greener in just a few days. And in the mountains, brown peaks were replaced by brilliant white \u2014 not just in California, but stretching into Nevada and Utah.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

This week\u2019s storm, classified as a weak, or Level 1, atmospheric river brought enough moisture to Southern California\u2019s drought-stricken landscape to delay fire season for weeks, if not months<\/a>, said Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at UC San Diego\u2019s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.<\/p>\n

Trees, grasses and plants that make up Southern California\u2019s natural landscape will absorb a lot of moisture from the rain, making them less prone to burn \u2014 at least for a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t take very many AR storms to really help us have a normal water year and recover from drought,\u201d Ralph said, referencing atmospheric rivers. \u201cThis is starting the season off on a favorable foot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Times staff writers Julia Wick and Hannah Fry contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The season\u2019s first major storm brought much-needed precipitation to California and transformed the state\u2019s mountain peaks with snow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8573,7,9,8569,8,8574,8568,6539,6536,491,8570,62,8572,8571,278,1009,225,430],"class_list":["post-8762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-atmospheric-administration-satellite","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-mountain","tag-california-news","tag-historical-level","tag-image","tag-landscape","tag-marty-ralph","tag-moisture","tag-mountain-peak","tag-rain","tag-reservoir","tag-satellite-photo","tag-season","tag-southern-california","tag-state","tag-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}