IMHO California's climate is overrated (San Jose, San Francisco: buy, buses, air pollution)

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by valsteele

Would even a state like North Dakota have more insects than subtropical regions of California?

I'm pretty sure the worst mosquito assault I ever experienced was a night camping at Devil's Lake, N. Dakota.

[Mini-apple-less]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

I'm pretty sure the worst mosquito assault I ever experienced was a night camping at Devil's Lake, N. Dakota.

I guess when I think of bugs I tend to think more of roaches, ants, etc. Are those more abundant oop there too?

[dalparadise]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

I'm pretty sure the worst mosquito assault I ever experienced was a night camping at Devil's Lake, N. Dakota.

You should spend an August in Houston...

97 degrees with high humidity. Heat index of 103. Air is soupy-thick. Cycadas making that spooky "hot day in the swamp" noise. Pool water-94 degrees. Wasps and hornets buzzing around. Fire ant mounds grow a foot high overnight.

It's so hot and moist that huge thunderclouds form in the afternoon for a 30-minute thunderstorm that dumps an inch of rain, then moves on, giving way to steam rising off the pavement and 100% humidity. Sweat beading. Rain wakes up the mosquitoes. They swarm, even in the daylight and heat.

Spray trucks drive up and down neighborhood streets making an eerie robot buzz sound, while they spew poison into the air. Neighborhood kids ignore the driver's reprimands and ride their bikes behind the truck in the toxic cloud. Low-flying crop duster planes buzz suburban residential neighborhoods spewing the poison too. I saw one about 50 ft. off the deck at about 130kts. in my sister's neighborhood one time that scared me to the point that I called the sheriff's office and was informed what it was.

Houston went through a drought in 2011 very similar to California's. They went three months with highs over 100 and no rain. The ground became so dry that 2" concrete slabs in driveways and sidewalks lifted and deflected an inch or more across huge areas, like it was some kind of seismic zone. It's hard to fathom a humid desert, but that's exactly what it was like. It was miserable beyond belief. The one thing people noted was that the lack of rain cut down the mosquitoes that year. They just lay dormant, though for the next round of damaging thunderstorms.

There's your "Texas Miracle". California's climate is underrated, as far as I'm concerned.

[NewbiePoster]

Originally Posted by valsteele

Would even a state like North Dakota have more insects than subtropical regions of California?

Yes. Alaska even more so. Think: tundra. The summer mosquito season is ruthless. And after that dies down, there's black fly season. Frankly, I've never had an insect problem in the tropics. There's no comparison with the northerly latitudes.

[NewbiePoster]

Originally Posted by dalparadise

You should spend an August in Houston...

97 degrees with high humidity. Heat index of 103. Air is soupy-thick. Cycadas making that spooky "hot day in the swamp" noise. Pool water-94 degrees. Wasps and hornets buzzing around. Fire ant mounds grow a foot high overnight.

It's so hot and moist that huge thunderclouds form in the afternoon for a 30-minute thunderstorm that dumps an inch of rain, then moves on, giving way to steam rising off the pavement and 100% humidity. Sweat beading. Rain wakes up the mosquitoes. They swarm, even in the daylight and heat.

Spray trucks drive up and down neighborhood streets making an eerie robot buzz sound, while they spew poison into the air. Neighborhood kids ignore the driver's reprimands and ride their bikes behind the truck in the toxic cloud. Low-flying crop duster planes buzz suburban residential neighborhoods spewing the poison too. I saw one about 50 ft. off the deck at about 130kts. in my sister's neighborhood one time that scared me to the point that I called the sheriff's office and was informed what it was.

Houston went through a drought in 2011 very similar to California's. They went three months with highs over 100 and no rain. The ground became so dry that 2" concrete slabs in driveways and sidewalks lifted and deflected an inch or more across huge areas, like it was some kind of seismic zone. It's hard to fathom a humid desert, but that's exactly what it was like. It was miserable beyond belief. The one thing people noted was that the lack of rain cut down the mosquitoes that year. They just lay dormant, though for the next round of damaging thunderstorms.

There's your "Texas Miracle". California's climate is underrated, as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks, man. I'll remember this post next time some idiot points out that the COL is SO much cheaper in TX than in Coastal Cal!. I'll be back to quote this.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by valsteele

I guess when I think of bugs I tend to think more of roaches, ants, etc. Are those more abundant oop there too?

"More abundant" than where? California? Dunno. I don't hardly notice roaches in CA. Ants, I guess are everywhere over the earth. I don't pay them much mind. Don't find hem a problem in my life. There are certainly roaches and ants in the upper mid-west, like most places. It's the biting bugs that incur my wrath. And flies that track their s*it covered little feet through my picnic food.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by dalparadise

You should spend an August in Houston...

No. I shouldn't.

But thanks for the thought.

[dalparadise]

Originally Posted by NewbiePoster

Thanks, man. I'll remember this post next time some idiot points out that the COL is SO much cheaper in TX than in Coastal Cal!. I'll be back to quote this.

By the way,

Humidity, to the degree that it is present in Houston, is a major climate game-changer. On humid Summer nights, it will often stay well in the 80s at night after a 100+ day and it is just as sweaty and uncomfortable. Glasses fogging from thick, hot, humid air at night is gross. There is no good way to spin that.

I once tried to save a bit on my electric bill (as much as $450 in Houston summer) by turning off the upstairs A/C during the day when no one was there, and noticed black mildew spots around the vent starting to form. So, I went back to setting the A/C at 80 degrees for the upstairs to avoid that.

Don't forget the floods, either. Multiple times, I was caught on a freeway overpass, or some other high ground, while raging flood waters filled freeways with up to 15 feet of dirty water. Multiple times. For Tropical Storm Allison, nearly 30" of rain fell over two days. My street, near the highest point in Houston had about 12-18 inches of street flooding that came up to my doorstep, but didn't make it into my house. I later discovered that this was due to I-10, which is below grade about 20 feet or so in that area, filled up with water, submerging 18-wheelers, buses, cars, etc. and spilled over the top, flooding neighborhoods all around it.

Even in commercially developed Downtown Houston, someone took an elevator into a flooded basement and drowned. Many highrise residents now have to buy flood insurance, because, even though they live up above the flood, their buildings' services and electrical equipment is vulnerable to floods. Have you ever heard of something like that?

In the 8 months i was away in SF to relocate, three storms with winds and rain heavy enough to move my big stainless steel grill across the patio and turn it over occurred. This thing had locked wheels and probably weighed about 100 lbs.

I evacuated for Hurricane Rita--24 hours in life-threatening conditions to go 200 miles. Yes, people died in the evacuation.

I rode out Ike-- a minimal storm that did a lot of damage in some areas. we were without electricity for 13 days in sweltering heat and without clean water for almost a week.


Humidity makes heat feel hotter and cold feel colder. It makes weather events more spectacular, too. I also suspect that it exacerbates air pollution. Houston's air pollution is terrible. On the east side of town, you can actually smell the refineries. There is a visible brown layer of smog most days in the summertime.

Though Houston only gets below freezing a few days per year, it does often hang in the 30s and low 40s for a week or more at a time. No big deal, right? Well, absent humidity and precipitation, you'd be right. But, with so much moisture in the air, it feels very cold. It can also ice, with 1/2" of ice on roadways that cause post-apocalyptic traffic pile-ups. It's rare, but it happens. Humidity makes the swings of temperature much wider.

[slo1318]

When we moved back to CA three months ago, I had discussions with the kids about the weather. They're asking me if the weather is always this nice, and I said yes, 90% of the country has relatively miserable summers... It's so funny and predictable to here natives complain about the weather. I can only tell them they have no idea.

[mateo45]

^ ^ Absolutely! Have lived in lotsa places that all had their attractions in one way or another… in natural beauty, culture, economy, variety, people, whatever. But IMHO the weather in California trumps 'em all, even if we do sorta take it for granted, like anything that tends to look 'easy'.

“Best way to live in California is to be from somewheres else.” ― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men