A picture of a snow and ice storm in Los Angeles from 1940:

[Are_grits_groceries]

@BeschlossDC:
Here 1940 Los Angeles snow & ice storm as people in cars "thumped themselves to keep warm": #LATimes

[kestrel91316]

1. I don't know if that's actually in the City of Los Angeles. It looks

very much like the area up by what they call The Grapevine, in the mountains to the north as you hear toward Bakersfield (and before there was a freeway there.

The Grapevine gets snow and horrible conditions a few times every year.

[Xithras]

2. Sign in the image says Gorman. That's not LA

Gorman is a tiny little town in the Tejon Pass north of LA, right at the top of the Grapevine. Even today it has a population less than 50.

The Grapevine gets snow on a halfway regular basis. Nothing unusual about that.

[highmindedhavi]

6. Correct

Snow is not uncommon in Gorman, CA.

[kestrel91316]

11. I knew it. i know that exact spot on the highway, it's I-5 now. WAAAAYYYY up in the mountains.

[Ikonoklast]

9. You got it right. That isn't LA.

http://framework.latimes.com/2012/12/20/1940-closure-of-ridge-route/

[indepat]

3. Memories from the 1939-40 winter are the most vivid from our early childhoods

Brrrr!

[NutmegYankee]

4. Sorry, but the National Weather Service doesn't document snow in LA in 1940.

1922 January (trace), March (trace)
1935 December (trace)
1947 December (trace)
1949 January (slightly more than 0.3 inches)
1950 April (0.2 inches)
1951 February (trace), March (trace)
1952 January (trace), March (trace), December (trace)
1954 January (0.3 inches), February (trace)
1957 January (trace)
1962 January (trace)

[B Calm]

5. Damn, like to have those old coupes!

[highmindedhavi]

7. Wikiquote claims your sig from Lewis is...

misquoted:


http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sinclair_Lewis

[B Calm]

8. Strange reply from someone who joined DU today!

What happens if I click the link you posted? A virus?

[highmindedhavi]

10. Today?

April 30 2013

[Crabby Appleton]

12. more info about photo

1940 closure of Ridge Route
Posted By: Scott Harrison
Posted On: 12:02 a.m. | December 20, 2012
Dec. 16, 1940: Motor vehicles are halted at Gorman by the first major storm of the season. Chains were required to proceed north.

The Los Angeles Times reported the next morning:

Impeding traffic on mountain highways with snow and ice, and in the lowlands with threatened landslides, the season’s first major rainstorm yesterday and last night drenched the Southland’s coastal plain and mantled the mountains in their first substantial white coat of the winter….

Occupants of an estimated 500 automobiles and trucks stalled on the Ridge Route thumped themselves to keep warm while highway crews spread dirt on ice-coated pavement to permit traffic to move.

Late last night passenger machines and light trucks were permitted to move between Gorman and Lebec if equipped with chains. Snow was falling, however, and there was a possibility the highway might be closed later.

The Ridge Route is now Interstate 5.

This photo was published in the Dec. 17, 1940, L.A. Times.

link:

http://framework.latimes.com/2012/12/20/1940-closure-of-ridge-route/

[taught_me_patience]

13. Gorman is about 5,000 feet

and cold as hell. I almost froze to death trying to fill up gas in Gorman at 6:00 am one morning while driving to San Francisco.