SAN FRANCISCO — While Americans from Seattle to Memphis to New York sweated through the swampy summer of 2022, here’s what it looked like on an August afternoon at Fisherman’s Wharf on San Francisco’s northern tip. Dozens of sea lions huddled on the floating pier, one in her down jacket and another in her sweat shirt.
“Nobody told me it was windy,” said Matthias Schili. PhD International student from Hamburg, As the temperature dropped into the 50s, a thick line of fog began to roll in from the Golden Gate under the orange sky of the setting sun.
Nearby, Riley Carvallis, a recruiter for a construction firm in Florida, ran into the store and bought a gray and white hoodie with “San Francisco” emblazoned across the chest.
Then there were college students visiting from Southern California, Anders Westland and Lillian Howell, who enjoyed the idea of being comfortable wearing trousers, long-sleeved shirts, and chunky boots.
“A lot of people flee to the heat,” said Westland, who studies business administration. “We’re running away cool.”
Long-time San Francisco residents are tired of explaining to out-of-town visitors that July and August can get pretty cold. Some San Francisco citizens live in fear of hearing again the apocryphal Mark Twain quote that the San Francisco summer was the coldest winter of the author’s life.
But now, as summer heatwaves intensify and weather maps across the country flash urgently red, the city is reassessing what was once considered a disadvantage: cold Pacific breezes and fog.
“Merry Foghast, to all who celebrate,” wrote one of the many San Francisco citizens who joined anonymous Twitter personality Carl of the Mist. #Fog Appreciation Day online.
San Francisco’s summer fog and cool breezes are created by a complex interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean. This is the process of pumping cold water from the depths to the surface to act as an air conditioner. Breakthrough Institute, a non-profit organization.
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The long-term impact of climate change on San Francisco’s cooler summers is unclear, Brown said, but there’s little evidence that the weather system that keeps the city cooler than inland will change radically any time soon. , which means that summers in San Francisco are likely to remain breezy and breezy for years to come.
“This could be part of an important future message about what San Francisco is all about,” said Joe Dallessandro, CEO of the San Francisco Tourism Board. We don’t hesitate to take pictures of people in the jackets, that’s who we are.”
D’Alessandro said he is considering promoting the summer shivers as a slogan for tourists to “get cooler.”
A page dedicated to San Francisco’s weather on the city’s tourism website describes it as “everlasting spring-like weather.” That might be the philanthropic explanation for the hated wind and puffy jacket zip-up nights when the foggy humidity can make it feel colder than official temperature readings.
“San Francisco residents can save on wardrobe costs,” says the tourism office.
A steady cold wind blowing from the sea is more to San Francisco’s character than its current role as a conservative pundit’s favorite punching bag for episodic political strife and scandal, or decidedly liberal politics. seems to be important.
Candlestick Park, home to the San Francisco Giants until 2000, was nationally known for its swirling summer winds and spine-chilling temperatures. The Giants handed out “Croix de Candlestick” pins with snow over the team’s logo to the rare stalwarts who dared sit through the night’s overtime.
San Francisco people have learned not to trust even the most promising sunny day. It doesn’t matter if
Warren Briar, a meteorological scientist at the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office, says the average temperature in downtown San Francisco in July and August is around 60 degrees. On average, he has risen just under two degrees in the last half century.
“We’ve seen slight hints of warming over the last few years, but we can’t say for certain that it’s a real trend,” Brier said.
1 climate change model indicates that the San Francisco area will warm by an average of 2.2 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. In contrast, Sacramento, about 90 miles inland, is projected to warm more rapidly, between 2.9 and 8.6 degrees, over the same period. New York, governed by a very different weather system, is projected to warm by 3.1 to 9.7 degrees Celsius and Chicago by 3.2 to 10.8 degrees Celsius during that time.
The net result for San Francisco, according to the model, is that the city not only stays relatively cool during the summer, but is likely to be less affected by rising temperatures from climate change than cities further east.
Unlike the rest of the country, where summers seem to hit record highs every year, the hottest summer days recorded in San Francisco occurred in the early 20th century. The highest temperature in July is 99°C on July 3, 1931. The second highest is in 1905.
(August’s highest is the most recent, 98 degrees on August 24, 2010.)
Breyer said San Francisco residents hope they can keep their wardrobes at least through the summer.
“Maybe decades from now, maybe it’s not a puffy jacket, but a proper sweater,” he said. “But I’m not saying it’s going to be a T-shirt and shorts. I don’t see anything pointing in that direction.”
On the edge of San Francisco Bay, Brooke and Jamie Varney from Ontario, Canada, take a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge surrounded by a pink sunset. The two boys wore hoods.
“It’s colder than home here,” said Jamie Varney.
It says something about San Francisco, where even Canadians mention the cold.
But locals know that real summer in the city is just around the corner. On average he September and he October are the warmest months of the year in San Francisco. The sea breezes abate, the fog dissipates, and the average temperature hits a refreshing 70 degrees, sometimes even higher.
In the past century and a half, there have been only 15 days when temperatures in downtown San Francisco were above 100 degrees Celsius. Golden Gate Weather Servicea website that summarizes weather data. All but four of those occurred in September or October.