Everywhere hillsides and mountain peaks rise above the landscape, there was snow to be seen around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Residents woke Tuesday morning to the unlikely sight of mountaintops frosted in powder sugary-snow after a cold storm dropped down from the Northwest, pushing temperatures down into the 20s and 30s and delivering snow.

Snowfall on the Bay Area’s highest mountain peaks above 4,000 feet elevation occurs annually, but with this storm the snow levels dropped remarkably low with accumulation down to 1,000 feet and snow that didn’t stick as low as 400 feet.

MORE: National Weather Service confirms dusting of snow on Twin Peaks

SFGATE readers are sending in images of their snow-covered cars, backyards and roads as well as lots of snowy views of Mt. Tamalpais, the East Bay hills, Mt. St. Helena and the Santa Cruz mountains that saw more than eights inches of accumulations in some spots.

San Francisco resident Jeanette Flodell, who shared an image of the Marin hills taken from the city, shared, “For a brief second, I thought I had teleported back to Scandinavia, and wanted to bring out the x-country skis!”

Rob Ferber of the Santa Cruz Mountains sent in an image taken from Skyline near Bear Gulch early Tuesday morning, and wrote, “It is snowing now!”

Please take a look at readers’ photos in the gallery above and email your images to agraff@sfgate.com and we’ll add them to the gallery.

While temperatures are forecast to remain chilly with highs in the 40s Tuesday, the snow is unlikely to last long as the skies clear and the sun shines over mountaintops.

William Rick Singer, founder of for-profit college prep business Edge College & Career Network also known as “The Key,” is allegedly the mastermind behind one of the largest college admissions scams to ever hit the U.S. and went to great lengths — which included pricey fees — to ensure his clients’ demands were met.

Singer, 58, has been called the “ringleader” behind the scheme, purportedly collecting roughly $25 million from dozens of individuals including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin over the course of nearly a decade to bribe school coaches and administrators into pretending their children were athletic recruits to ensure their admission into top tier colleges, prosecutors say.

The Newport Beach, Calif., businessman agreed to plead guilty in Boston federal court Tuesday to charges including racketeering conspiracy and obstruction of justice. As a part of his guilty plea, Singer said he would pay at least $3.4 million to the feds, The Boston Globe reports.

3 OF THE MOST BIZARRE DETAILS OF THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS CHEATING SCANDAL

On his website for The Key, Singer describes himself as a dedicated father and coach who understands the pressure put on families surrounding college acceptances. The Key calls itself “the nation’s largest private life coaching and college counseling company.”

“As founder of The Key, I have spent the past 25 years helping students discover their life passion, and guiding them along with their families through the complex college admissions maze. Using The Key method, our coaches help unlock the full potential of your son or daughter, and set them on a course to excel in life,” Singer stated online, providing biographies for seven other “coaches.”

Andrew Lelling, U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, reportedly claimed Singer’s clients paid him “anywhere between $200,000 and $6.5 million” for his unique services.

FELICITY HUFFMAN, LORI LOUGHLIN AMONG 50 SNARED IN ELITE COLLEGE CHEATING SCAM, AUTHORITIES SAY

Parents of prospective students allegedly conspired with a college entrance consultant to beat the system and ensure their students were admitted or had a better chance to be admitted to certain colleges or universities, including Yale, Stanford, Texas, UCLA, USC, Wake Forest and others.

“According to the charging documents, Singer facilitated cheating on the SAT and ACT exams for his clients by instructing them to seek extended time for their children on college entrance exams, which included having the children purport to have learning disabilities in order to obtain the required medical documentation,” the U.S. Justice Department explained, in part, in an online statement.

“Singer would accommodate what parents wanted to do.”

— Andrew Lelling

However, that was just one of many ways Singer ensured the students got accepted to elite schools.

“Singer would accommodate what parents wanted to do,” Lelling said, adding that it “appears that the schools are not involved.”

Prosecutors say the consultant represented to parents that the scheme had worked successfully more than 800 times.

Singer also served as CEO of the Key Worldwide Foundation (KWF), a non-profit he claimed was a charity. Bribery payments were disguised as donations to KWF in sums up to $75,000 per SAT or ACT exam, the Justice Department said, noting that many students didn’t realize their parents had staged anything.

“This is a case where [the parents] flaunted their wealth, sparing no expense to cheat the system so they could set their children up for success with the best money can buy,” Joseph Bonavolonta from the FBI Boston Field Office said in a Tuesday news conference.

In total, 50 people — including more than 30 parents and nine coaches — were charged Tuesday in the scheme.

Fox News’ Katherine Lam,Travis Fedschun and The Assocaited Press contributed to this report.

A new TV ad by a pro-GOP group that backs party candidates running in state legislative elections is going where Republicans have been hesitant to go until recent weeks. 

The spot ties an incumbent Democratic state delegate in Virginia who’s running for reelection this November to President Biden, whose approval ratings have taken a major hit over the past month and a half.

The commercial, by the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), uses a recording of Virginia state lawmaker Alex Askew saying that he and other Democrats in the commonwealth can “run on the record that President Biden and our folks and partners in Washington, D.C., are doing.” 

WHAT’S BEHIND THE DROP IN PRESIDENT BIDEN’S POLL NUMBERS

The spot targeting Askew is part of a six-figure ad buy launched last month by the RSLC in the Virginia contests, which are being seen by many pundits as a bellwether ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Up until now, Republican ads targeting Democratic members of Congress and state lawmakers who face challenging reelections this year and next year have often tied them to such Democratic leaders as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, progressive champion Sen. Bernie Sanders, liberal firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the so-called “Squad.”

WHERE BIDEN STANDS IN THE LATEST FOX NEWS NATIONAL POLL

Biden, who until early last month enjoyed healthy poll numbers, was not to be seen. But the president’s standing among Americans is flagging in the wake of Biden’s much criticized handling of the turbulent U.S. exit from Afghanistan, and amid a surge in COVID cases this summer among mainly unvaccinated people due to the spread of the highly infectious delta variant.

And that appears to be changing the way Republican operatives and strategists view the president.

“This is the most directly we’ve linked a Virginia House Democrat to President Biden so far this cycle. Given the president is under water in this district and in other targets of ours, stay tuned for more of us holding Virginia Democrats accountable for standing by the failures of Biden and his radical liberal allies in Washington,” an official with the  RSLC told Fox News.

And it’s not just the RSLC.

Michael McAdams, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the reelection arm of the House GOP, told Fox News that “Joe Biden’s failed policies will be weaponized in races around the country and serve as an anchor around the neck of every vulnerable House Democrat.” 

Meanwhile, Biden also co-stars in a recent spot by the America’s Job Creators for a Strong Recovery, a coalition of more than 30 business and industry groups. Last month they launched the first in a series of planned ads taking aim at the $3.5 trillion spending package being pushed by the president and congressional Democrats.

“Biden, Pelosi, and Bernie are pushing a job-killing agenda that will hammer Main Street businesses and working families,” charges the narrator in the digital spot, which targets moderate Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who could face a challenging reelection next year.

Democrats are defending the governor’s office and their control of both houses of state legislature in Virginia this November. And nationally, Democrats are defending their razor-thin majorities in the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections.

TRUMP, WITH SPATE OF 2022 ENDORSEMENTS, GOES WHERE NO FORMER PRESIDENT’S GONE BEFORE

When the president’s party controls both chambers of Congress, the midterms are usually a referendum on that president’s record and performance in office. And the presidential approval rating is a key barometer heading into midterms elections. 

From President Obama in the 2010 midterms to President Trump in the 2018 elections, there’s a history of the minority party and their allies targeting a first-term president their ads.

“There’s still a long way to go until next year’s midterms but the growing political parallels for the Democrats between President Obama’s and President Biden’s first terms are hard to ignore,” longtime GOP consultant Brian Walsh argued. “In both instances, they campaigned as a moderate but then pursued a very partisan and liberal political agenda once in office that ultimately backfired for their party in the midterms.”

Walsh, a former top strategist for GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas who also served as National Republican Senatorial Committee communications director during the 2010 and 2012 cycles, forecast that “there’s no question that House and Senate Democrats running in battleground races are going to be much more hesitant to hitch themselves to President Biden in the way that they might have nine months ago.” 

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But Democratic operative and strategist Chris Moyer argued that “the thought that tying vulnerable candidates to President Biden is going to work in the long term seems like a little bit of a risky bet. I think there’s a sense that it may have been a rough few weeks for President Biden. But I think folks have known who Joe Biden is for a long time and he’s going to have a chance to right the ship and he’s taking a lot of actions to do that already.”

Moyer, a veteran of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and Sen. Cory Booker’s bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, predicted that “the decision to try to tie candidates to the president may not look so good in hindsight, a few months down the road.”

Nebraska GOP Sen. Ben Sasse, in an interview Thursday with Fox News, ramped up his criticism of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam over comments on a controversial late-term abortion bill — saying the governor effectively discussed “infanticide” and should resign if he won’t back down.

Sasse, a pro-life Republican, said Northam’s comments were “morally repugnant” and argued the Democratic governor should “get the hell out of office” if he doesn’t support protecting the life of a child who survived an abortion.

“The comments the governor of Virginia made were about fourth-term abortions,” Sasse said on Fox News’ “The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino.” “That’s not abortion, that’s infanticide.”

OUTRAGE AS VIDEO SHOWS VIRGINIA ABORTION BILL SPONSOR SAYING PLAN WOULD ALLOW TERMINATION UP UNTIL BIRTH

Northam’s comments were made during an appearance on a local radio station to discuss The Repeal Act, which seeks to repeal restrictions on third-trimester abortions.

Virginia Democratic Del. Kathy Tran, a sponsor, sparked outrage from conservatives when she was asked at a hearing if a woman about to give birth and dilating could still request an abortion. The bill was tabled in committee this week.

“My bill would allow that, yes,” she said. Existing state law does not put an absolute time limit on abortions and Tran’s legislation does not alter that, but it does loosen restrictions on the need to get additional certification from doctors.

NEW YORK ‘CELEBRATES’ LEGALIZING ABORTION UNTIL BIRTH

Northam, a former pediatric neurologist, had been asked about Tran’s comments and said he couldn’t speak for her, but said that third-trimester abortions are done with “the consent of obviously the mother, with consent of the physician, multiple physicians by the way, and it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities or there may be a fetus that’s not viable.”

“So in this particular example if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen, the infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

Northam’s comments quickly led to an outpouring of criticism from Republicans and pro-life activists. Sasse questioned why pro-life Democrats have not spoken out in opposition to the comments made by Northam and Tran. Neither of the two pro-life Democrats in the Senate – Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Manchin of West Virginia – has made public comments about the controversy.

“The Democratic Party has not come out and condemned this, and they really should be,” he said.

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Northam pushed back hard on his critics, tweeting: “I have devoted my life to caring for children and any insinuation otherwise is shameful and disgusting.”

Northam Communications Director Ofirah Yheskel said GOP critics were “trying to play politics with women’s health” — and sought to clarify her boss’ comments:

“No woman seeks a third trimester abortion except in the case of tragic or difficult circumstances, such as a nonviable pregnancy or in the event of severe fetal abnormalities, and the governor’s comments were limited to the actions physicians would take in the event that a woman in those circumstances went into labor. Attempts to extrapolate these comments otherwise is in bad faith and underscores exactly why the governor believes physicians and women, not legislators, should make these difficult and deeply personal medical decisions.”

Tran’s legislation would reduce the number of doctors who would have to certify late-term abortions are needed from three to one. It would also delete the requirement that doctors determine that continuing a pregnancy would “substantially and irremediably” impair a woman’s health. Instead doctors would only have to certify that the woman’s health was impaired.

Supporters said the changes in law would help reduce the bureaucratic burdens women face when dealing with difficult decisions involving late-term abortions, which often involve serious medical complications.

The effort in Virginia follows New York passing a bill last week loosening restrictions on abortion, as New Mexico, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington also pass new laws expanding abortion access or move to strip old laws from the books that limit abortions.

Fox News’ Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report.