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General
California is situated on the western coast of the United States of America.
It has almost 800 miles of Pacific coast that varies from warm sandy beaches
in the south to rugged rocky shores in the north. A series of low mountains
along the coast shelter the broad central valley
than runs down the middle of the entire state. This valley forms one of the
most productive agricultural centers in the country. A bit further inland,
the massive Sierra Nevada mountain range forms an eastern backbone to the
state. Here lies Mount Whitney, the highest peak in continental United
States and some spectacular alpine scenery. Behind the Sierras and south of
them, the vast Mojave Desert extends eastward into Nevada. California covers
100 degrees of latitude, so the different between the regions are very big.
\"It never rains in California\" is just a lure for the tourist, the reality
is different.
The average rainfall in San Francisco amounts to 492mm per year. In Los
Angeles the average rainfall is about 100 mm lower, 392 mm per year.
The climate in California varies significantly from one location to another.
Basically, the Californian weather is semi-tropical, from arid desert in
most of the southern and eastern regions, to mildly
temperate with colder alpine climates at the higher altitudes.
In California, you can lounge on a warm sandy beach, drive up a mountain to
ski or drive down into the intense heat of the desert,
and you can do it all in the same day! The temperature in most of the coast regions is pleasant. The cool breezes from the sea ally the summer temperatures and make the winters mild. The temperatures in the summer are about 30 and in the winter about 15 degrees. In the northern part it is usually colder than in the southern part. In the north, first at all the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the weather can be very cold and sometimes it can also snow. From time to time over 15 meter snow. In summer the deserts are very hot, up to 40 degrees. In the winter the temperatures are very pleasant, about 20 degrees.
Weather in 3 different cities in California
San Francisco is situated in the north of California. The clash of the hot
air from Sierra Nevada and the pacific tide forms the famous fog. This cool
summer fog, befog the golden gate bridge. But with the sun disappears the fog
in the late in the morning. The most urban areas along the Pacific Ocean are
often nebulous bulled, while the eastern of San Francisco situated cities
have often sunny weather. They are protected by hill chains, which hold up the
fog, so that this fog can\'t dip into the cities. A few kilometres beyond San
Francisco's, there isn\'t any fog and the temperatures a much higher,
sometimes about 10 degrees. The average smog-days in San Francisco are
ordinary 18 days in a year. By comparison, in New York 174 smog-days and in
Los Angeles 231 smog-days. A smog-day is when you usually could see the sun, but the sun is cloaked by exhaust gases, so that you just can guess that the sun is behind those gases. The climate in Los Angeles is the whole year pleasing mild. The temperatures from May till October are about 20° degrees and from November till March. The humidity amounts 50 till 85 %, so that the heat isn\'t unpleasant. About 85% of the annual precipitation falls between November and March. During the summertime it hardly never rains. The sun always shines in Los Angeles. About 75% in a year. But on smog days (231 days per year, mostly from July till September) in L.A it is very hot and muggy. All two or tree years a heat-wave comes to Los Angeles, then the temperatures climb up to aver 40 degrees. This happens when the winds from the deserts, blow towards Los Angeles, across the Santa-Ana-Mountains, as the famous Santa-Ana-wind.
To the south of Santa Barbara the cliché of California is truth: blue sky, sun and blistering heat. At the coast the cool breezes cool a little bit down the hot temperatures. In the inland the heat is much higher. To the north of Santa Barbara to San Francisco the weather is very vagarious. It isn't so hot anymore and the water is much colder and also in the summer there are many clouds in the sky.
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