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Snow storms on the Peninsula? These historical pics prove it to be true
From San Jose to San Bruno, snowy scenes from the Peninsula’s past.
A photograph of Santa Clara University students enjoying a rare snowfall, February 1976. (Image courtesy of Archives & Special Collections, Santa Clara University)
The snow began to fall heavily in Palo Alto at 5 a.m. on February 5th, and by 11a.m. it had blanketed the ground with six inches of frosty white powder.
Automobiles drive on a snow covered Sand Hill Road, during the big snow storm of 1962. Note Hoover Tower in the background. (Image via the Palo Alto Historical Association)
A few hours later, around 2 p.m., someone had the good sense to go outside and take a photo to capture this rare occurrence—snowfall on the SF Peninsula.
That was in 1887.
In the many decades since, real deal snowfall of this kind upon the Bay Area has been a sort of meteorological anomaly, a literal freak of nature that occurs just once or twice in most residents’ lifetimes. But everyone seems to have their stories: the snowy deluge in February of 1976, the brief but sizable storm of ’88, and of course, the legendary snowfall of ’62. A few even have the photos to prove it.
So as the days grow colder in 2018 and one of many, many versions of “White Christmas” accompanies roaming holiday shoppers, we decided to dive into some of our local historical archives for photographic evidence of widespread snowfall on the Peninsula and in the South Bay. To our surprise, the visual record was much deeper than we expected.
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