Snow falls at Hearst Castle as frigid storm reaches SLO County. See the video
An early squall from the arriving winter storm dropped snow on Hearst Castle on Wednesday and hail on the ranch down below.
The weather startled observers, who captured video of the rare occurrence.
The video from the Castle posted by Alfredo Cardenas shows snow flurries floating down from the sky at around midday with William Randolph Hearst’s historic estate in the background.
“Oh yeah, here we go,” a man in the video marvels as the snowflakes fall around him. “I knew it was cold, but cold enough to snow? That is crazy.”
Around the same time a few miles away and several hundred feet lower in elevation, Grace Shaffer captured a brief hail burst outside the oceanfront Hearst Ranch Winery tasting room in San Simeon.
“Um, it’s hailing,” Shaffer says with understated surprise as icy pebbles collect on the ground.
“I can’t remember the last time it hailed,” someone else comments off camera.
The display is the first wave of what is expected to be a snowy and icy few days in San Luis Obispo County and elsewhere across California as snow levels fall to as low as 1,000 feet.
The weather came hours after a ferocious wind storm barreled through the area, toppling trees from Pismo Beach to the North Coast, where residents struggled to clear fallen tree limbs and trunks.
The owners and insurers of various vehicles and at least one home in Cambria faced the prospects of filing claims for damage from fallen trees, while some area residents said they were still without electricity hours after the lights went out Tuesday night.
Got a video or photo of snow, hail or damage from the winter storm hitting SLO County? Send your submissions to kleslie@thetribunenews.com for possible publication at sanluisobispo.com and in The Tribune.
This story was originally published February 22, 2023 at 2:17 PM.
