Forecasts are calling for snow down to 1,000 feet (or even lower) in Southern California and the Santa Monica Mountains. To give you an idea, everything in this photo would get hit by snow—and another several hundred feet below too.

It has been a strange winter. After early rainfall soaked us with more than 20 inches of rain in Calabasas (our annual average is about 21 inches), by late December the storm track shifted. Then, in January, we went four weeks without rain.

But those December storms had been enough to cover the San Gabriel Mountains with snow and green up the local hills. And the toyon seem to be having a big year in the Santa Monicas, like the one below on Saddle Peak with Calabasas Peak in the distance.

We’ll see what happens over the next couple of days. Because the National Weather Service just doesn’t make statements like, “THIS STORM HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BRING SOME OF THE LOWEST SNOW LEVELS WE HAVE SEEN IN RECENT TIMES.”