Jim, I think you're thinking of the Sierra Nevada mountain range (with a bit
of the Cascades at the far north end of the state). The Rocky Mountains
would be more in Colorado and such.
As a third-generation native of San Francisco, I'm really aware of what the
hills, ocean and mountains do to the weather there. In the summer the
Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys heat up, but the heat doesn't come from
the Gulf of Mexico like back here in D.C. - it comes from the sun beating on
the earth and heating it. This causes the air in the valley to rise, and
that pulls in cold air off the ocean. The water temperature in the Pacific
Ocean offshore from Northern California is pretty much 13-15 degrees all the
time, and has a huge effect on the climate - San Francisco is COLD in the
summer and doesn't really warm up until the two valleys cool down, slowing
the wind off the ocean, and allowing the city to warm up. The warmest
months are September and October because of that. The same ocean condition
that keeps San Francisco from having summer also keeps it from having
winter.
In the summer, though, you can have the following temperature gradients from
the beach in San Francisco: 15 degrees at the beach, 20 degrees downtown,
25 degrees across the bay in Berkeley, 30 degrees east of the hills in
Concord and Walnut Creek, and 35-38 degrees in Sacramento, over a distance
of only about 120 km. As you can imagine this causes some REALLY fierce
winds
A ridge of high pressure builds up over the eastern Pacific in summer. This
causes all the storms to go north, so essentially it does not rain from
mid-April to mid-October. Six cool dry months and six cooler wet months is
the pattern in northern coastal California.
In the winter that ridge of high pressure breaks down and some really huge
rainstorms can come roaring in, causing washouts, floods, and mudslides that
disrupt highway and rail traffic. When these storms hit the Sierra Nevadas
east of Sacramento it turns into snow that can fall 30 cm an HOUR. Other
than hwy 70 to Portola, I-80 to Reno and US 50 to South Lake Tahoe, Caltrans
doesn't even TRY to keep the other mountain passes (hwy 120, 4, 88, etc.)
open - the passes close from late October into May. They don't plow in
spring, they just let it melt. Chains are normally required over the
mountains in winter (the California Highway Patrol will turn you around at
the chain control points if you don't have them), and the railroad uses
spreaders, flangers and in the worst situations rotary plows to keep the
Donner Summit line open.
Los Angeles has been a coastal desert for thousands of years. Most of the
storms go north of there. They get their water from Hoover Dam in Nevada
and from the parts of California where it DOES rain. And Hollywood is not a
separate city; it is actually a district of Los Angeles (as are many other
places out there), though the post office does call it Hollywood.
Carleton
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of James R. Frysinger
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2011 21:18
To: U.S. Metric Association
Cc: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:50172] Re: Pleasant surprise, metric units used
California is quite large, Pat, and it is much larger in the N-S
direction than the E-W direction. It exhibits a large range of altitudes
as well. The Rockies exert major orographic effects on the weather
patterns. All this leads to wide range of climatology. Very large
sections of the state are indeed desert lands, especially in the
southern part of the state, and that includes the Los Angeles area.
Wikipedia notes that the Los Angeles area averages only 35 days of
precipitation per year. This is one of the reasons that the film
industry took off there -- fewer shooting schedules ruined by rain!
Hollywood is one of the cities in that LA metropolitan area.
Jim
On 2011-03-23 1944, Pat Naughtin wrote:
On 2011/03/24, at 01:51 , James R. Frysinger wrote:
I was pleasantly surprised to see metric units used in this UCLA website
comparing Japan and California. Go to
http://www.international.ucla.edu/eas/japan/geography/overlay1.htm
Then use the right arrow to progress through the next two frames.
Dear Jim,
Thanks for this reference. I was struck by the rainfall in Los Angeles at
350 millimetres per year. As a rule of thumb I have used 250 mm to mean
desert in the past but I didn't know that Los Angeles was near this desert
conditions level.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin LCAMS
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, see
http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
Hear Pat speak at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
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