fter years of complaints about the all-too-hot weather in San Diego, I was overjoyed at the opportunity to move to Northern California and the presumably-cooler weather there. Of course once I did, it was put up or shut up time. I wanted cooler weather, cold temperatures in the winter, clouds, and rain more than one week a year. If I got them, would I still want them?

More recent weather-related ramblings are added on top of this page.

December 19, 2003

We're well into fall and approaching winter here in Northern California, my home since July.  It's been cool-to-cold and quite frequently rainy here for the past two months, and I'm at last getting to where I can almost answer my nearly life-long question.  A question I've been wondering about since the early 80's, and wondered about for most of the last two decades, all of which were spent living in the San Diego area.  Where it was always about 15 degrees warmer than I wanted it to be, summer or winter, and where it hardly ever rained.

The question was; would I still pine for cooler temperatures and rain every day if I actually lived somewhere that got that sort of weather? I loved the rain and cold in SD, but it was never really cold.  And admittedly it's never really cold up here in the Bay Area either; unless you consider weather that's not quite cold enough to put a skim on top of water "cold."  And it's not really rainy, I mean this ain't Seattle. But it's far cooler and far rainy here than it ever was in San Diego.

We've had several stretches of three or four days of constant clouds and rain, and I find that while I don't mind going outside in the morning (okay, afternoon) and seeing that it's sunny, I'm not at all unhappy when it's rainy yet again.  The one drawback is that most times I think about going out and getting some exercise, I see that it's raining or about to rain or just finished raining, and I can't be bothered.  Besides, I've got work to do.

So while I can't definitely say that I enjoy the amount of rain we're getting, I can definitely and very wholeheartedly say that I love the cooler weather.  I'm far more temperature sensitive than precipitation attentive, (that's why houses have roofs, after all) and I wouldn't mind it being sunny every day here, so long as we continued to get highs in the 50's and lows in the 30's.

A few days recently when it's been warm enough in the day to go out without a jacket or long sleeved shirt, I've been actually disappointed.  I want it to be cold, within my narrow definition of the term, and anywhere between 40 and 55 I'm overjoyed with.  This will all be much easier when man has achieved total control of the elements, and I'm personally in charge of them for my section of the earth.

August 11, 2003

My first couple of weeks living here were misleading, since the temperature was very high most every day, and the area I live in now and Malaya's condo were practically as hot as my old apartment in San Diego and the La Mesa area I was stuck in there. I was worrying that it would be that hot for months, until October or November and the promised fall (I've not seen an actual Autumn season in decades, living in San Diego) arrived.  Well, after a couple of weeks of hot weather, 90's at the worst, it's been just gorgeous every day since then.  Highs have occasionally been in the low 80's, and we've had to run the A/C while driving around in the day, but it's been in the 60's or less every night, making for great sleeping/snuggling weather, and most days it's been in the 70's with negligible humidity, making it very comfortable to be around the condo or out and about in shorts and sandals, with the option of going up to pants and shoes at night, though there's no reason to think about a jacket if you're under 70 or over 5.

True, I'd prefer it in the 60's since I like to wear long pants and shoes and maybe even a jacket from time to time, and I like rain and it's been bone-dry here, but since my main dislike is hot weather, I must give it up for the Bay Area.  Even the generally-hotter inland portion of it where I now live.  Malaya tells me that this is very typical weather for the summer here, and that we had a heat wave during my first week+, and given how nice it's been the last 2-3 weeks, I'm beginning to actually believe it.

And of course I'm practically salivating with anticipation for the fall and winter weather, when it's said to be actually cold here.  I never even had a need to turn on the heat my last two years in San Diego.  Remember this and slap me if I'm bitching about the cold and rain come January, okay? 

July 17, 2003

The weather here is interesting.

Weather in San Diego varied a lot by location, but was relatively predictable.  I'll talk about summer weather, since it's mostly what concerned me, being as I don't like it hot.  I'm also using the archaic, totally random and unscientific Fahrenheit system, just because I was born in the US and like all good Americans, think I can force everyone else on earth to use whatever stupid bullshit I grew up using.

Fahrenheit, 32º = 0º Celsius, and 212º = 100º Celsius.  Normal human temperature is 98.6F, you need a jacket outside below about 65F, and over 90F you're hot, with really hot days being 100+. Or you can be clever and convert it, Fº - 32 x 9/5 = C  Basically subtract 32 and then figure a bit less than half of that, is my rule of thumb.  C to F is the opposite, you almost double it, and then add 32.  And yeah, I've probably got the order of operations wrong on that equation, but just play along, this isn't a math blog, and nothing you ever do will make it one.

Anyway, In the spring and fall and winter when it wasn't a heat wave, the temp over all of SD area would be in the 60's or 70's, often up into the low 80's in the day, which I liked well enough, while wishing it were colder.  Near the coast it would often be a bit cooler in the day and more cloudy, but the inland and desert areas got much colder at night or stayed colder in the day if it was really cool weather, like say below 55.  And no, that's not considered "cold" pretty much anywhere else on earth, but SD is a very temperate clime.  Almost never over 90 or below 60. 

But since we're talking about the summer, which basically runs from March until November in SD, with the potential for 90+ heat waves extending into Dec and Jan, and occasionally even February, before it starts to heat up again in March... um, wait...

Ahem.

Summer days (or warm days in spring/fall/winter) it was always coolest on the coast, and the temperature increased steadily as you moved inland, going up in punctuated equilibrium-like steps.  Once you got away from the coast (where the weather was mostly fueled by the giant, always-cool Pacific Ocean) it would get hotter, but gradually.  Within a few miles of the ocean could be 70, 5 miles inland if you were up some hills it would be 75 or 80, and it was about that hot for a good 10 miles inland.  Say 10º hotter than on the coast.  If you got another 5 miles inland, you'd gain at least a degree per mile, making location very important, depending upon how much you liked or disliked the hotter weather.

My apartment was in La Mesa, but southern La Mesa, and while on the map La Mesa is right next to El Cajon, it would often be 85 for the high where I lived, and 92 in El Cajon.  Since it's right at about 85+ that I begin to become uncomfortable, that was a big difference for me.

Usual daytime highs for San Diego, like the ones you see on the official national weather map, are bullshit, since the official temperature is taken at the airport, or somewhere else downtown, right by the bay.  I'd often be sweltering with the fans on at 11pm, and the local news would claim the high for the day was 76º.  Which it was, 5 feet from the Pacific Ocean.  Where I would have loved to live, if my crappy $855 apartment wouldn't have been $2200 a month down there.

Well that's not entirely true, there are a lot of ocean-areas with lower prices, but they are all holes like Ocean Beach, where there is no parking and horrible traffic and all the homeless hang out and someone is always having a drunken party at 2am, and there are gang shootings and such.  Things that sort of take the fun out of having the temperature.  It's the nice areas of the coast that I wanted to live in, but in La Jolla or Torrey Pines or anywhere with cliffs and ocean views you'll be paying $1.5m for a 2bdrm house, and rents are all in the thousands per month.

But since I'm not living in the SD area anymore, and never will again (aside from visits to the parents) this is all irrelevant.  Where I live now, the weather is very wacky.  I'd love to link to a weather map of the SF area, but I still don't have internet access on this computer, so let's just pretend I know what it would look like.  The ocean is colder up here than 500 miles to the south in SD, and the SF Bay is giant, and very oddly shaped, running way inland in several long and deep channels.  In SD the bay is very large, but mostly just a spoon-carved shape, with some man-made jetties and land fills to block off parts of it. There are some areas with water on both sides, Coronado Island, for one, but those aren't large enough to really worry about factoring into the weather equation.

In SF, the entire SF downtown has water on both sides, and lots of it.  I don't live anywhere near there, but it's the infamously steep and windy and foggy point of land about which so much has been written.  The famous Mark Twain quote was (paraphrasing from memory): "The coldest winter I ever lived through was a summer in San Francisco."  It's routinely in the 50's or even colder at night in SF this time of year, when much of the US won't be below 70 at any time until September, and SF (which we do not call "Frisco", I've been told) can be foggy at any time, windy, gorgeous sunny days with the temperature dropping 30 degrees shortly after sunset, etc.  I would love to live there for the weather, but it's so urban and crowded and ungodly expensive that that's not real likely to happen.  Traffic is always hell, can't park anywhere, a closet rents for $2000 a month, etc.  One day when money isn't an option I might have a place there, maybe rent out a penthouse in some apartment building with a great view, or else a big house on the coast, but I'd probably like it more further north or south, in a less-crowded area.

Anyway, right across the bay is Oakland, and it's routinely far hotter there than in SF, since they don't get the lovely ocean breezes.  I don't know this area long enough to really generalize on the temperature variations, but from the few times I've seen the local news talking about the weather, the temps have been all over the place.  There are steep hills very near the coast, and once you get up over them the ocean cooling vanishes, and the temperature can increase 15 or 20 degrees in a 10 minute drive.  I experienced that numerous times in San Diego, driving from my location due west, and feeling the temperature drop substantially in just about 15 miles.  I'd be sweating in shorts at my apartment, and get out of my car 20 minutes later downtown, or in Pt. Loma, and it would be almost cool.

Anyway, I don't really have a point to this, and I can hear Malaya running the bath water, but I like the widely-varying micro-climates in the Bay Area, and once I've been here a while and driven around more, I'll no doubt find it very interesting to feel how much the temperature changes from one area to another, and over the course of the day.

Currently in our location, east of Oakland, just over the hills, it's been hot in the day, 80+ but it really cools off at night.  Last night we were sweaty in the living room with all of the lights on until after midnight, but once we got into the bedroom we hopped right under the covers to keep warm, with the temp in the 60's in there and outside.

The first night I arrived I was freezing in shorts until we started carrying in boxes, and got hot and sweaty from the exertion of that.  Malaya knows my weather preferences pretty well from past conversations, and she's predicted that I'll love it here in the winter and spring, when it's cold and often rainy and windy.  I love that sort of weather in San Diego, and always feel really creative and energetic (in a staying inside and writing sort of way) in that sort of weather.

However I've always wondered if that's because we only get that sort of weather for about 10 days a year in San Diego, so I like it for the scarcity?  I guess I'll find out when I've got it on and off for 4 or 5 months.  Look for more belaboring of this topic for the foreseeable future, and some conclusions about the winter weather desirability by oh... Xmas.

January 25, 2003

I bitch about a lot of stuff.  Bitching about the weather in San Diego, however, is probably the area I'm least likely to get any sympathy from my readers, though.  Mainly since my complaints about it are 98% "it's too hot/sunny", and apparently many people actually enjoy that sort of weather.

Reading the news today, there have been blizzards and record cold across most of the US, especially the south.  Even Florida had freezing weather, which is unheard of there. Snow in North Carolina, icy roads, etc. Meanwhile, in San Diego, it's been in the high 70's or low 80's every day for at least a week, and probably 20 days thus far this month.  We had a few days of cooler temps and some very light drizzle.

I can't remember it being under 50 in the actual city of San Diego in years, though it's probably been 47 or so at some point and I just don't remember. Certainly hasn't been this year, and I'm in La Mesa, which is a bit east, away from the coast (obviously) and therefore this area gets colder colds and hotter hots, in the winter and the summer.  And it's still not ever been cold this year. I have not even considered turning on the heater any time this winter, and have only had to close the windows in my apartment at night 8 or 10 times the whole season.

And now, for the benefit of any of you who didn't look out the window about a paragraph ago, curse at the snow, and punch a hole in your monitor, I shall complain further.

I like cold weather. I like to wear boots and a heavy denim long sleeve shirt under a coat.  I would love to wear gloves; I have some really cool snowboarding ones, but it's not been cold enough here to seriously consider wearing them in years.  Literally.  I suppose if I went out and stood around in the cold, late at night, I might need warmer clothing on, but as I'm not about to take a job as a night watchman, that doesn't seem a real strong possibility.  I'm just happy now when I get to wear my new Xmas leather jacket, without having to take it off lest I sweat.

I'm willing to admit that I'd probably miss this if I moved to Alaska or Siberia or Canada or some other polar bear-infested arctic wasteland, since my idea of "cold" is well above freezing. But I'd definitely like it to be colder than it is here, and especially wetter.  I get so happy when there is enough drizzle to wet the streets, which happens a good 8 or 10 times a year.

I need to live somewhere gloomier.

January 7, 2003

Weird weather for January.  It's howling wind outside right now.  I mean 30MPH plus, I had to close the living room windows since the blinds were being sucked into the screen so hard I thought it might tear, and papers were blowing off my desk.  Really.  It's 4 in the morning, and the outside temperature is something like 74, with about 22% humidity.  This be a Santa Ana, when there is an offshore flow, high pressure, and the air from the deserts to the east gets sucked out to sea.  It's cloudless and very windy all day, and dry hot.  It feels about 85 in the sun, and your car is an oven with the windows up, but if you stand in the shade of a building you are almost cold without a jacket.  Plus about every other person you see is sniffling, since allergies seem to go insane with this sort of wind/weather.  Mine were not, luckily.

I like the night wind, but this is so strong that there are loud and annoying whistling noises as it sucks through cracks people have left their windows open, and I can hear banging shutters from the house across the parking lot.  It's damn noisy to be frank.  Especially without the sounds of cars and people to cover the desolate howling of the gale. 

August 19, 2002

I've been really out of it all weekend. Since it's now early Monday morning, I guess I should say that I was out of it all weekend.  And apparently I still am.

I had no energy to go anywhere or do anything.  Played some boring games, moped around in D2X, and actually watched golf.  You know I'm bored with that televised chloroform is enough to entertain me.  I didn't feel depressed, but I slept like 10 hours a day, in 4-6 hour segments, so something was up.  I'd like to blame it on being sick, but I feel fine.  I can't even blame the weather, since it was gorgeous here.

Well, gorgeous in my opinion, since it was cool and cloudy.  The temperature was probably 15 or 20 degrees cooler than an average mid-August in La Mesa, and I was comfortable in here without even turning a fan on me.  I still prefer January and 60 degree weather, but this wasn't bad for Summer.

Generally the hottest weather here is August-October, when we get dry windy days, with an offshore flow, which sucks the hot winds in from the deserts to the East.  We've only had a few days of that sort of weather thus far this year, though I fear they're all saving up for next month. If it gets too hot I'll just bite the $$ bullet and run the A/C.  Costs me about $5 a day to keep it 85 inside, which I can stand with a fan blowing on me also.  Not that much money, and certainly worth it compared to sitting and sweating and bitching, but when I get that electric bill at the end of the month and it's $140 rather than $30, it's sticker shocking.

*bitch bitch bitch whine whine*

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