IT'S WINTER FOR A DAY AS SNOW DUSTS PARTS OF L.A.

But Southern California's six-day cold snap took a surreal turn Wednesday as a rare snowstorm brought snowplows to the canyons above Malibu, left parts of the San Fernando Valley with a white dusting and shut down Interstate 5.

The snow levels plunged well below 1,000 feet in some areas, blanketing the Santa Monica Mountains with snow and leaving streets and lawns in Venice, Westwood and elsewhere on the Westside covered with ice from pea-sized hail.

A stronger than expected low pressure storm system high in the atmosphere turned a merely cold day into one of snow, rain and hail, said Jamie Meier, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The system under normal circumstances would have brought a typical rainstorm through Los Angeles. But the cold snap turned the rain into snow and hail, she said.

"We were expecting a thunderstorm," Meier said. "The snow levels dropped a bit lower than we were expecting."

The forecast for today calls for continued chilly temperatures, with lows in the 30s and 40s. Snow levels overnight are expected to hover around 1,500 feet.

Forecasters said that although snow fell in Santa Clarita, Malibu's hills and parts of the west San Fernando Valley, Westside neighborhoods were more likely to have been hit with a heavy accumulation of irregularly shaped hailstones called graupel that can be confused with snowflakes.

But don't tell that to Jen Naylor.

She was in Santa Monica when she called her sister in Westwood and could hear her children screaming in the background about white stuff piling up in their backyard.

She raced to the neighborhood off Montana Avenue and found what looked like snow on rooftops as well as on lawns.

Her sister's children had pulled out their ski gear and were playing in the backyard.

"This was the first time I made a snowman in L.A," said Naylor, a Los Angeles native. "We used dried cranberry for the eyes and a baby carrot for the nose because it was a baby snowman."

Westlake Village resident Joy Blanchard and her 16-year-old daughter, Sasha, experienced what forecasters agreed was the real stuff while driving on Kanan Road. She parked her Lexus sport utility vehicle on the side of the road Wednesday afternoon after shopping to take in the snow-capped peaks. They ended up building a small snowman by the side of the road.