While Lake Tahoe had experienced some high winds and choppy waters on Friday, by Saturday morning, more normal-seeming, springlike weather had taken hold, giving boaters a false sense of calm before a sudden storm rolled through.

The events of Saturday at Lake Tahoe will likely be the stuff of legend in the area for many years to come, assuming such dramatic weather shifts and stormy conditions aren't part of some new normal for early summer on the lake.

The National Weather Service Reno bureau said that what occurred was a fast-moving "downburst," or "a column of cold air that dropped from a thunderstorm and spread outward on impact with the lake’s surface," per the Sacramento Bee.

ABC 7's Drew Tuma explains that within a thunderstorm, "turbulent air is rising and falling," which is why airplanes generally won't fly through them. He further explains that what likely happened was a fast downdraft from the storm, which was heading north to south, and those winds hit the surface of the lake and accelerated, causing extreme and unusual waves — especially at the southern end of the lake where the tragic boat capsize occurred.

At 1 pm, winds were just around 5 miles per hour and the lake was very calm, but the clouds began darkening after 2 pm, and over the course of 90 minutes, extreme weather conditions took over and some parts of the lake saw waves up to 10 feet high.

The New York Times spoke to a number of people on the lake that day, including a husband and wife who called for a rescue after their boat became disabled in a different part of the lake around the same time that the capsize happened, just after 3 pm.

Dan Johnston was piloting his 26-foot MasterCraft on the lake when the waves began kicking up and the back of the boat started taking on water. His wife, son, and several friends on the boat started bailing the water out using whatever they could, but then the engine took on water and began stalling.

"As I was losing power, my wife was like, ‘We should call 911,’" Johnston tells the Times, and that call likely saved their lives. A rescue boat came quickly to tow them, but their boat capsized anyway while they were still onboard, rolling over before they got to shore. Johnston and his wife both swam to shore in the frigid waters, while others were rescued by emergency personnel.

Johnston says that while they were in an ambulance being taken to an area hospital, they heard over the radio some of the dramatic rescue calls that were happening in the southwest part of the lake, where DoorDash executive Joshua Pickles's 27-foot ChrisCraft had flipped over with 10 people onboard.

Many boats were damaged in the storm, with some that were pushed ashore and toppled onto each other by the waves, as seen in the news report below.

"It looked like the ocean," says Lindsay Chandler, a service manager at a local marina, speaking to the Times. "We couldn’t see across the lake, it was snowing heavily. I’ve never seen anything like that in my 15 years living in Lake Tahoe."

Eric Mein, who owns a boat training school on the lake, tells the Times that he had a "sixth sense" that a storm could be incoming that afternoon. "The lake was laying down, the clouds were building up. You could see the wind was ready to start blowing. It was time to get off the water," Mein said.

Pickles's boat was on an outing for his mother's 71st birthday weekend, and both his parents, his uncle, and several family friends were onboard. A representative for the family, Sam Singer, says that Pickles was an experienced boater but this was only his third time on the lake with the new boat, which he'd purchased last season.

It also seems like his party had gone to the exact wrong place at the wrong time, near Rooster Rock, just north of Emerald Bay. That sudden downdraft brought winds all the way from the north end of the lake to the south, where Emerald Bay is located, likely creating the largest waves in that area.

"You have a longer distance for those waves to travel across the lake," says Kyle Floyd, officer in charge at the U.S. Coast Guard station in Tahoe City, speaking to the Times. "That greater distance can build the waves dramatically."

Pickles, 37, was killed in the incident, along with his parents, 73-year-old Terry Pickles and 71-year-old Paula Bozinovich of Redwood City, and his uncle, 72-year-old Peter Bayes of Lincoln. Also killed were Timothy O’Leary, 71, of Auburn, CA; Theresa Giullari, 66, of Honeoye, NY; James Guck, 69, of Honeoye, NY; and Stephen Lindsay, 63, of Springwater, NY.

Pickles is survived by was his wife, Jordan Sugar-Carlsgaard, and their seven-year-old daughter, who were both back on shore that afternoon.

In a statement, Sugar-Carlsgaard said, "No words can express the pain and anguish we feel knowing their lives were lost during what was meant to be a joyful time on the lake."

Previously: SF-Based DoorDash Executive and His Parents Among Victims ID'd In Tahoe Boating Tragedy