A reader emailed last week to report an error in a photo caption that will set the historical record straight.
The reader wrote about the From the Archives feature on B2 Jan. 5. The photo showed a man from January 1937 tossing white stuff at the camera in Mission Beach. A big pile of the stuff was in front him and you could see more behind him. The photo came from the archives of the San Diego History Center.
The caption that accompanied the picture read, “Man throwing snow from ground at Mission Beach. Quite a bit of snow is on beach in apparent freak snowstorm.”
The caption that ran in the Union-Tribune on Jan. 5 repeated that snow landed on Mission Beach.
However, the reader who emailed the U-T last week pointed out that was incorrect. “That is not snow at the beach. It is sea foam stirred up by the ocean waves agitating organic matter in the water. Snow doesn’t float on ocean water in big clumps. I have seen this often on the beach/ocean in Imperial Beach working as an ocean lifeguard over the past four decades.”
Alex Tardy, a senior meteorologist with the national Weather Service ed that theory. “That does look like the ‘foam effect’ we get after storms (high surf) and then decay breakdown from bacteria in runoff water (after rain).”
I forwarded the information to the San Diego History Center. A vice president there said the caption would be updated.
