Southern Californians don’t remember they have mountains until it rains and the clouds pour snow across their peaks.

The white tops of the mountains (which are usually hidden by smog, haze and a general cloudiness) peep up over the foothills in a rare show of stark brilliance. So when I drove home tonight, northbound, before the sun set, the mountains stared back at me with the most recent 48 hours worth of storm-snow deposited on top.

Only after any winter precipitation scrubs the air and the medium grey-brown sky so that the white mountains stand out against the now blue winter sky do we bother to take notice.

And then we stop. And we remember where we live.

And all the teenagers strap on their expensive snowboards and the aging boomers pull their skis out from the garage rafters (or they opt for taking their granddaughters sledding instead) to play in the snow.

Southern Californians get snow like this and a view this mighty only every few winters. The years in between might see a little dusting of snow in the mountain towns creating a need for the ski resorts to blow manmade white stuff through the air so that they can make their mortgages for one more season. But once every couple of years, January and February unload snow storehouses in our mountains.

It takes a cold snow dump to remind us we live in a basin. Los Angeles and Orange Counties are in a flat expanse with the local mountains to the north and the east and the Pacific Ocean to the south and the west. For us, the sun rises over the coastal range and sets over the sea.
And even in the coldest of winter months, the basin dwellers never get snow on their driveways. The temperature might drop into the high thirties, but even that isn’t enough to bring a layer of snow to us.

Those of us who grew up here treat snow-dwellers with fascination and we all have tall tales about snow in the coastal towns…”I remember it snowed in Huntington Beach once when I was in the third grade” or “It snowed in Fullerton once; I know because my cousin was there and made snowballs.”

Snow for us is interesting, and other. So when we see our mountains (they are ours, right?) covered in snow, and we can actually see them, we stop.

The things unseen to me in the hottest of smoggy summer months are evident now: the blue suburban sky and the mountains behind my back when I face the ocean. Storms and Santa Ana winds are the only cure to my hazy vision.

Only after the storms can I see the snow.