The season’s first major storm brought much-needed precipitation to California, transforming the state’s mountain peaks with snow and filling reservoirs with rain. This deluge of moisture left nearly all of the state’s largest reservoirs at or above historical levels for this time of year. Experts suggest that the storm may have significantly pushed back the fire season in Los Angeles.
The images below, composed of satellite photos captured by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite, show California from space on Sunday (left) and again on Thursday (right). Across the Golden State, the landscape turned noticeably greener in just a few days. In the mountains, brown peaks were replaced by brilliant white snow, not only in California but extending into neighboring Nevada and Utah.
Zooming in on the Sierra Nevada range, another set of satellite images—provided by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellites—illustrate the Central and Southern Sierra before and after the storm. From Mono Lake and Mammoth Mountain at the top of the image to Sequoia National Park at the bottom, the landscape transformed dramatically in just three days. The mountains went from parched on Sunday to snow-capped by Wednesday.
This week’s storm, classified as a weak Level 1 atmospheric river, brought enough moisture to Southern California’s drought-stricken landscape to delay the fire season by weeks, if not months. Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, explained that trees, grasses, and plants absorbing this rain will become less prone to burning—at least temporarily.
“It doesn’t take very many AR storms to really help us have a normal water year and recover from drought,” Ralph said, referring to atmospheric rivers. “This is starting the season off on a favorable foot.”
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-10-16/amazing-satellite-photos-show-california-mountains-before-and-after-snowstorms
