Yesterday's near perfect weather is now but a sepia-toned memory. Reports of a strange, icy substance, often referred to as "snow," is falling on Mount Diablo, Mount Hamilton in Santa Clara County, Mount Hamilton, and (any minute now) Mount Tam. It's also blanketing the eerie Santa Cruz Mountains, resulting in the closure of Highway 9. It looks like many of you will have to take Highway 17. If you dare. Oh, and be sure......

--Here's today's mini-blotter: a family murder-suicide in Tilden Park; Man hit by a BART train at Balboa Park in the late morning today; a guy drove off the side of Mount Tam [Inside Bay Area, the EBX 92510, the Chron; CBS 5; Marin IJ]. --They're laying people off at the Merc News too? [SFBG Politics Blog]. --A blogger gets sued for defamation in small claims court by a journalist who didn't like, among other things,......

It snowed in the Bay Area this weekend -- the first March snowstorm since 1896. And we're not just talking snow like in the Sierras or maybe on the top of Mount Tam -- there was snow in Danville, on Mount Baker in the South Bay, and even some snow in San Francisco by West Portal. The last time it snowed in San Francisco was in 1976, and we got about an inch. (Click here for some interesting SF snow history: SF's largest snow was 3.7 inches in downtown on Feb. 5, 1887.) We didn't get a huge 1887-style blizzard on Sunday, but Highway 17 was closed for three hours on Sunday morning for snowplows, a section of 280 south of 92 was closed, a seven-car pileup on 80 was blamed on hail, and in the area's biggest car pileup in ages, 28 cars spun out of control in the snow on the north side of the Waldo Tunnel just outside Sausalito, as unsuspecting motorists sped out of the downhill-heading tunnel only to be faced with snowy, slippery roads. As an immigrant to San Francisco from a snowier clime, this correspondent assumes you kids out there will have no idea what we're talking about when we say that we're sorry this didn't happen during the week so you could have a snow day from school. Know why we know you won't know what we're talking about? The Chronicle had to provide a definition of snow for its bewildered readers!!! We love this city.

While snow falls in flakes and looks more like small ice shavings, hail is balls of ice, usually small. If the trees are white, [National Weather Service meteorologist Brooke] Bingaman said, it's probably snow.

Last week's winner, the San Jose Metro. Phil Angelides made all his money in real estate. The Merc News gets in a screamy match with Baron Davis of the GSWarriors -- literally! Yay. Cover article: Muslim comedians (including this guy). Cirque du Soleil goes South Bay. Picture of Gillian Anderson looking like Madonna. And Straight Dope: can moms really lift cars off their children? Maybe. Next up, the SF Weekly. The editor's note re......

What's going on with our four-legged friends? Well -- Oakland's passed a law making it illegal to own more than three animals in one house. You can petition to have more, but only if you can show that all the animals are registered and spayed/neutered. People who already have more than three pets are grandfathered in, but for those animals only (so you can't swap out Fluffy for Bane later or anything). This will supposedly make it easier to take legal action against the dreaded animal hoarders. We like the euphemism they use on Animal Precinct -- you're not a hoarder, you're just "overwhelmed." Across the bay, a San Francisco cop shot a pit bull charging at him as he investigated reports of squatters in the Portola District. No human injuries were suffered. In other animal-human encounters, two "terrified" campers fled their campsite on Mount Tam as two mountain lions, um, propragated their species. And the SF SPCA has just received a $13 million gift, which is the largest gift in the organization's history. They'll use the money to build a new animal hospital. The hospital will be called the Leanne Roberts Animal Care Center, in honor of a former board member of the SPCA who died in 2003 (and whose husband ponied up the cash). The hospital will be finished around 2007 -- just in time for the third season of Animal Cops SF! ...