The Cold Weather blues

[happ]

Happ, is it warmer in socal in the fall and eraly winter than the summer?

ruskinPalms

Actually Sept/Oct can be quite warm esp in coastal cities like San Francisco when the fog season ends.  Even in SoCal some beach cities can be overcast and cool 70's nearly all summer and warm up in the Fall.

Autumn & early winter can be warm & quite dry but once the rain season kicks in temps drop though average minimums normally stay fairly mild [45-55].

The last 10 days have been sunny with strong offshore winds, thus the heat.  That can change and it will within a day or 2.  Next week will be much more typical with some clouds & maybe a little rain    Normal early Dec max/min : low 70's/low 50's and getting it colder as Jan/Feb approach.

Florida & extreme south Texas, on average are warmer than any place in California except the low desert during summer.  We don't get warm humid Gulf air anytime except occasionally from the Gulf of California  during summer.  Warm winter nights in SoCal are nearly all due to offshore descending air as continental wind whips thru mountain passes and warms as it is frictionally constricted. For example check out these 9PM temps/wind for metro LA :

L.A. DOWNTOWN : 59  CALM

MARINA DEL REY :  55  N1  

SAN PEDRO :  64  NW12  

UCLA : 64 N7  

BURBANK :  57  CALM  

VAN NUYS : 61  SW3  

ALTADENA : 63  N8

CHATSWORTH  : 72  N8

GRANADA HILLS : 66 N5G20  

SAN RAFAEL HILLS : 71  N11

WHITTIER HILLS : 68 E2

WOODLAND HILLS : 55  CALM                  

BTW, I love the sight of cumulus buildups over the San Gabriel mts on summer afternoons    but it is rare that the thunderstorms reach coastal regions.  

Sorry for the lengthy answer but I'm keen on climatology

[NBTX11]

(happ @ Dec. 08 2006,01:00)

QUOTE

Florida & extreme south Texas, on average are warmer than any place in California except the low desert during summer.  

TX has plenty of desert climates too.  Laredo averages a high of  102-103 in the summer.  That's average, so many days are upwards of 110+.  There is also the Chihuahan desert in West Texas.  As you drive from east to west in TX, you go though just about every climate zone imaginable.  From Subtropical humid rain forests that average 60 inches in the piney woods of east texas (that are basically identical to Louisiana, Mississippi, etc.), to bone dry deserts and mountains in west texas.

[Bilbo]

The technical term for some of you guys for feeling low is the well named SAD or Seasonal Effective Disorder and is particulary prelevant in Scandinavia where the Swedes get it worst followed by the Norwegians.

The Danes keep warm by telling jokes about their near neighbours.

Actually we had our first frost last night but it quickly burned off in the bright sunlight and I only had to apply warm water to my rear window in the shade.

The guy across the road spends ages scraping frost off his car windows every winter and looks at me as tho Im mad when I do the warm water bit every year.

Clearly he must have been absent from his physics class when the subject came up.

There is no point in trying to explain that is not possible to crack normal car windows using this method and that toughened winscreen is sitting in an expanded neoprene (waterproof closed cell gasket which is like sponge except it is closed cell and not open cell and hence non-absorbent hence its what goes into wet suits or he will think Im a wise guy and wont listen anyway.

Regardez

Juan

[Dave Butler]

It was October and the Indians on a remote reservation asked their new Chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a Chief in a modern society he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky he couldn't tell what the winter was going to be like.

Nevertheless, to be on the safe side he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared. But being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?"

"It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold," the meteorologist at the weather service responded.

So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared. A week later he called the National Weather Service again. "Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?"

"Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied, "it's going to be a very cold winter."

The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find. Two weeks later the Chief called the National Weather Service again. "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?"

"Absolutely," the man replied. "It's looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever."

"How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.

The weatherman replied, "The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy."

[happ]

:laugh:  Great writing Dave Butler. And true.  Very frustrating to read local NWS discussions & primarily because of a poor acuracy rate.

Current forecast of "likely" rainfall is an "on again/off again thing".  ???   Lower levels are dry and not conducive to precipitation.  Still we can hope that one of the fronts hangs together long enough to produce some rain  

Hey, Floridians came through without a scratch, right?

[SunnyFl]

(Bilbo @ Dec. 09 2006,06:41)

QUOTE

The technical term for some of you guys for feeling low is the well named SAD or Seasonal Effective Disorder

Juan, this is very true.  

What attracted me to FL, and keeps me here in spite of killer storms, stratospheric insurance rates and bugs so big you can practically ride 'em, isn't the heat.  It's the incredible sunlight and comparative lack of seasonal variation.   (The winter days get shorter the farther you get from the equator.)

Season Affective Disorder can be quite severe.  Trust me on this.  VOE  

[amazondk]

Here is the current winter day weather for where I am right now.  I am in Boa Vista, Roraima, about 2 degrees north latititude.  So, technically it is winter.  But, since it is the dry season now it is acutally the summer here.  Things get sort of upside down around the equator.  As to the Season Affective Disorder it is not much of a problem here as the difference from the longest day to the shortest day is about 30 minutes at the most.  You can tell the season of the year though by the angle of the sun, if you look closely.  You can not tell it by the intensity though.  If it is sunny it is hot any time of the year.

I am going back south of the equator to Manaus in a bit and returing to the winter which is really the summer in the southern hemisphere.  We have had a lot of rain there over the past few days.

Boa Vista, Brazil

Weather for your life

Mostly Cloudy

84°F

Feels Like

87°F

Updated Dec 15 10:00 a.m. Local Time

UV Index: 6 High

Wind: From ESE at 9 mph

Humidity: 58%

Pressure: 29.91 in.

Dew Point: 68°F

Visibility: 6.2 miles

[happ]

Thanks, Don for reporting your observations. Dry summer/wet summer, right?  ???   Which do you prefer? Is there any sense of an autumn/spring?