"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." Mark Twain.
Some argue that Mark Twain never said this. Whether he did or didn’t, thousands have said, are saying and will say that the coldest days they’ve known are those summer days in San Francisco.
Me, I am screaming it. This is a photo of me in our backyard last August. I dressed like this all summer!
I spent 5 winters in Minnesota and 4 winters in New York, and nothing could ever prepare me for the cold I faced when I moved to San Francisco. Absurd right? I moved here sight unseen and in the assumption that I was heading to sunny, warm California. I even considered getting rid of my winter gear before I moved here. HA! I seriously felt I could not handle another cold NY winter. Well the joke was on me! My time here in San Francisco has been nothing but one long cold winter! My first two months were brutal. I initially stayed with my buddy and his wife in one of the foggier parts of town. A neighborhood called Sunset. Go figure. They didn’t have a heating system and I chattered myself to sleep every night. I cried every day to my east coast family and friends and received the best gift in the world at Christmas that year. An electric blanket! Not long after that, I also purchased an electric space heater. And let me tell you, even with my thick blankets and down comforter, I have my little heater on every night! Honestly, there are only about 5 nights out of the year that I don’t use it.
There is a serious misconception about temperature here. When you watch the weather forecast and look at the temps across the country, San Fran always rings in at 70 and sunny. What the map fails to reflect is the thick layer of fog that separates our bodies from that 70 and sun. The fog doesn’t stand alone though. She is fierce friends with the wind, who blows in at 20-30 mph, howling at my window as if I were in Antarctica!
Microclimates reign supreme around here. 5 minutes in any direction can give you an entirely different experience.
Some argue that Mark Twain never said this. Whether he did or didn’t, thousands have said, are saying and will say that the coldest days they’ve known are those summer days in San Francisco.
Me, I am screaming it. This is a photo of me in our backyard last August. I dressed like this all summer!
I spent 5 winters in Minnesota and 4 winters in New York, and nothing could ever prepare me for the cold I faced when I moved to San Francisco. Absurd right? I moved here sight unseen and in the assumption that I was heading to sunny, warm California. I even considered getting rid of my winter gear before I moved here. HA! I seriously felt I could not handle another cold NY winter. Well the joke was on me! My time here in San Francisco has been nothing but one long cold winter! My first two months were brutal. I initially stayed with my buddy and his wife in one of the foggier parts of town. A neighborhood called Sunset. Go figure. They didn’t have a heating system and I chattered myself to sleep every night. I cried every day to my east coast family and friends and received the best gift in the world at Christmas that year. An electric blanket! Not long after that, I also purchased an electric space heater. And let me tell you, even with my thick blankets and down comforter, I have my little heater on every night! Honestly, there are only about 5 nights out of the year that I don’t use it.
There is a serious misconception about temperature here. When you watch the weather forecast and look at the temps across the country, San Fran always rings in at 70 and sunny. What the map fails to reflect is the thick layer of fog that separates our bodies from that 70 and sun. The fog doesn’t stand alone though. She is fierce friends with the wind, who blows in at 20-30 mph, howling at my window as if I were in Antarctica!
Microclimates reign supreme around here. 5 minutes in any direction can give you an entirely different experience.
I work in Berkeley, 20 minutes from San Francisco. I leave for work each day wrapped up in my coat and scarf. I get off the train in Berkeley and I’m in a completely different world. One of sunshine, blue skies and tank tops! It’s seriously 10-15 degrees warmer there.
When and if it actually is warm and sunny in San Francisco, please do not kid yourself into thinking that it will remain that way for the day, the hour or even a minute!
I’ll never forget the Bay to Breakers Marathon I went to last year. It was freezing when I left home so I bundled up in a heavy coat, hat, scarf and gloves. By 10am I was so hot that I peeled down to a tank top. Sunshine is a foreign element to my skin now, so I was nice and pink in no time. Within a few hours, dense fog and cold winds took over the city. Again. For the next three days I walked around in my long wool coat with a sunburn. Talk about confusing signals for my body!
At any time of the year San Francisco is full of tourist walking around scantly dressed, absolutely freezing their asses off. Boy, do I laugh! Cursing and crying wasn't exactly turning me into a warmer person. =)
As I am writing this at a coffee shop, a fireman struck up a conversation with me while waiting on his coffee. “How about this summer day we got going on?!” He says and laughs. (It’s been foggy, windy and cold every single day this week) Talk about a Universal Echo. He was completely drawn to me and the energy of my story. Turns out he also moved here from NYC and like me, hated his first two years here. Especially the weather. He wrestled with going back to the east coast for some time. He finally bumped into the right people and met his community. I swear the Universe sent him in to say, “Hang in there Amanda… Things are about to turn around for you. Sunshine is on the way!”
