Friday, April 13, 2012

San Francisco weather explained

HOLY SHIT! Did you see that? Last night it thundered and lightninged. That doesn't look right. It thundered and lit. Or something. Anyway, we all freaked out! And with good reason!

Photo via The Daily Mail and currency trader Phil McGrew!


This never happens here! That's why we all collectively lost our shit.

"But wait," Rest of Country is saying. "Why is thunder and lightning - a relatively common occurrence here in Wal-Mart/Applebee's Land - so rare in San Francisco? In fact, why is your weather so fucked up and gay, just like all of you weirdos that live there?"

I'm glad you asked. What follows is a brief course in San Francisco Climatology.

You see, San Francisco sits immediately to the East of the Trans-Pacific Beat Ridge.



As a result, the dominant weather pattern in San Francisco is COLD. It's just fucking cold here, pretty much 24/7/365. It can be July or January, we don't give a fuck, it's just cold. Deal with it.

Now, from time to time, the Trans-Pacific Beat Ridge starts flowing backwards or some shit, I don't even know, and as a result, moist air from the equator and cold air from the North Pole intersect by the Kraken.



When this happens, and it is rare, to be sure, the sky is rent asunder and the gods boom and the tears of my enemies fall as rain. Or something.

Anyway, point being, what usually happens in SF is that it's cold and sometimes there's fog and sometimes not. When it rains, it's usually like a thick mist. So when something like last night happens - thunder! lightning! loud noise from the sky! AAAAAAAAAHHHH WHAT IS THAT - it causes unrest and concern among the locals. Similarly, any time it gets above 72 degrees, there is a collective freakout and people make ill-advised fashion choices given how little their skin is exposed to direct sunlight and suddenly the whole town looks like someone took the Albino Village on a field trip to Daytona.

But we are nothing if not resilient! And San Franciscans' response to any extreme weather phenomenon is the same. Have a drink.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

you are flippin hilarious.

Tamagosan said...

Since I pretty much slept through my college class called The Weather (who knew it was superhard meteorology science stuff that involved math and who puts a class at 8:30 but nevermind because now I know that a D still gets you credit at the U of WA), this was extremely informative. I grew up on this fine peninsula thinking Weather only existed in books. Then I lived a bunch of other places and realized I kind of prefer it that way.

GO GIANTS! T-1 hour!

@KarlTheFog said...

Great article, but could use more fog.

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