Storms that froze the West Coast mountains brought a glimpse of winter into August

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ski season is still at least a few months away, but the unusually cold snap that froze mountain peaks along the West Coast last weekend brought a hint of winter into August.

The calendar temporarily shifted forward to November as the storm moved out of the Gulf of Alaska and down the Pacific Northwest into California.

Snow fell at higher elevations on Mount Rainier southeast of Seattle, as did Mount Bachelor Resort in central Oregon.

“We were excited to see the snow falling!,” Mount Bachelor spokeswoman Presley Quong said in an email to The Associated Press on Monday. “It's a great reminder that ski season is fast approaching.”

Mount Shasta, a 14,163-foot (4,317-meter) volcano in the Cascade Range in Northern California, was covered in a white blanket after storm clouds passed.

About half a foot (15.2 centimeters) of snow fell at Lake Helen on Mount Shasta, which is at an elevation of 10,400 feet (3,170 meters), with even more at higher elevations, according to the U.S. Forest Service's Shasta Ranger Station.

The higher elevations of Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Nevada mountains received between a quarter and a half inch (0.63 and 1.27 centimeters) of snow on Saturday, said Carlos Molina, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford, California.

The last time the area saw snowfall in August was in 2003.

Molina said this storm was essentially a “one-off” because storms like this typically move from the Pacific Northwest, along the Canadian border and into the northern Rocky Mountains and then into the Great Lakes region.

“This storm brought enough cool air to combat the hot air in California and keep the heat dome away from us,” he said.

In the Eastern Sierra, Mammoth Mountain Resort received “sufficient” snowfall but not enough to report an official snowfall total, spokeswoman Emily Van Groening said.