AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The Los Angeles region was watching something else yesterday, and it didn't come from the screen. It came from the sky. A lot of people like Elina Shatkin captured it for social media.
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ELINA SHATKIN: OK, here it is. It's Pasadena, 2:00 p.m. Look at this. I am walking here. And oh, my God, look; there is snow.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Snow - Shatkin usually edits stories about food for the LAist website and our member station KPCC, but yesterday her world was all about snow.
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SHATKIN: This is nuts. It's Snowpocalypse LA 2019.
CORNISH: Snowfall is rare in Los Angeles. The last significant one was February 8, 1989 - 5 inches. Yesterday's enthusiasm was shared by many in the area, including students from Century Academy in Thousand Oaks, who came out of their classrooms to marvel at the snow.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Laughter) It's so exciting.
SHAPIRO: And here's the reaction from actor Jerry O'Connell in Calabasas.
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JERRY O'CONNELL: It is snowing in Calabasas right now, OK, Calabasas, Calif. Look at this. Look; not hail, snow.
SHAPIRO: You note that insistence in O'Connell's voice. Elina Shatkin says plenty of skeptics on social media questioned whether it was really snow or hail or rain.
SHATKIN: A lot of people seemed to not believe that this was snow, but the National Weather Service says it's snow. And in my heart of hearts, I know it's snow regardless of what the snow deniers say.
CORNISH: The National Weather Service in Los Angeles did confirm it was snow yesterday. Exactly how many inches fell depended on the elevation, but in most places, it was officially, quote, "a dusting."
SHATKIN: We live in Southern California, so we prepare for earthquakes, and we prepare for wildfires and for film shooting disrupting our traffic flow. We prepare for all of these, you know, natural and man-made disasters. But you just never think in Southern California you're going to have to prepare for a snowstorm.
SHAPIRO: OK, not quite a snow storm, but Shatkin says it gives people in LA a new empathy for those in other parts of the country suffering through real wintery conditions.
SHATKIN: Now that we have walked a mile or at least across a parking lot in your snowshoes, we have nothing but love and admiration for your strength surviving this kind of incredibly harsh weather.
CORNISH: The great 2019 LA snowstorm was short-lived. The weather today is in the 60s. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.