Big Bear Lake, CA January 7, 2016 -The weather phenomenon El Nino has produced a major pacific storm that has and is still pumping deep snow conditions on Southern California mountains. Snow Summit is reporting two feet of powder has fallen over two days and the snowfall will continue as the National Weather Service has extended the Winter Warning until early Friday morning. Call yourself lucky if you can get to the slopes for a day of powder skiing. For others the roads around Big Bear are a challenge for even experienced mountain drivers with deep snow, accidents and storm debris on all roads around Big Bear. A rare road condition of R3 for Highway 38 was called earlier today which mandates chains for all vehicles with no exceptions, in other words 4×4’s need to put on chains as well. Heavy snow, high winds, falling trees and branches with downed power lines is causing many isolated power outages which has the Big Bear Fire Department and Bear Valley Electric responding to countless requests for assistance. Bear Valley Electric is reporting Moonridge and areas from the Big Bear Lake Village west are where most outages are currently being reported. These massive winter storms are stretching from Oregon to Mexico with a great deal of energy focused on Southern California.
