The summer weather in San Francisco does not have a great reputation. As the Central Valley broils at 100 degrees just 50 miles inland, San Francisco can remain enveloped in fog all day, the temperature never leaving the 50s. This phenomenon was most pronounced when I used to commute to Pleasanton on the opposite side of the coastal ridge, sweating in shorts as I boarded the train on the way home, only to emerge from the subway an hour later to the biting winds swirling around the SF Civic Center.
My new job, which is just south of the City provides me with a new variation on the theme, with weather that seems to alternate between either blistering hot in the afternoon as I wait for the bus to take me to the train, or 40-mile-an-hour frigid winds sweeping over the fog-covered hills of South San Francisco all afternoon. I pick up the train at Balboa Park which is dependably foggy, then the Mission, which is sheltered from the wind somehow but is still not its usual sunny self.
After an uncommonly long winter of rain and cold, San Francisco is now in the midst of one of coldest and darkest Julys I can remember. I’m not the only one complaining as I see friends on Facebook complaining about down comforters and winter hats and scarves in response to those sweltering on the East Coast. But I understand this is the price to pay if you live in SF, and it’s still a good trade-off for the actual winter-winter of the Midwest.







