New to Sac. What is the weather like here? (San Diego: to live in, swimming)

[sactowner]

Hello,
I just moved here to Sacramento last week and want to know exactly what the weather is like here. I have talked to a few ppl here and they say you'll get 2 seasons, rainy and hot, with perfect weather only a few weeks out of the year. Is this true? They also said that it rained for like 6 months straight up here. From December-June.

[sacramento916]

Originally Posted by sactowner

Hello,
I just moved here to Sacramento last week and want to know exactly what the weather is like here. I have talked to a few ppl here and they say you'll get 2 seasons, rainy and hot, with perfect weather only a few weeks out of the year. Is this true? They also said that it rained for like 6 months straight up here. From December-June.

Weather this year has been kind of strange.

Summers are very hot. Falls are very nice. Winters are mild. Spring is nice interspersed with rain.

[eureka1]

It rained up here for six months straight ,too, so don't feel left out. I used to live in Sac and it's a great place. You have about five months of superhot weather- you learn to adapt. Lunch is an issue. Either brownbag it or if you have enough co-workers, figure out a schedule by which two of you go out to pick up lunch (pre-ordered, of course) then one circles the block while the other runs in. It starts cooling down around 7 and everyone's swimming, playing tennis, kayaking in the river. If you're in South Sac or the Pocket, you're five minutes from a walk on the levee. You picked a great place. Good luck in your new job.

[wburg]

Six months straight, no. Winter in Sacramento is pretty much like spring or fall many other places--it rains, rather than snowing. Obviously it didn't rain continuously, but we had a decent rain year after years of drought so of course people started building arks.

I suppose it depends on what your standard of perfect weather is. If you grew up in San Diego or the LA Basin, Sacramento will seem like a scorching desert in summer and a howling tundra in winter. If you grew up in the Bay Area, our summers may well make you explode. If you grew up in the midwest or the northeast, our winters seem mild and warm, and our summers hot but without stifling humidity. Often in winter we get clear, cool days that are crisp but sunny, great for a brisk walk outdoors, and once you adapt to summer's heat and learn to seek the shade and stay hydrated they're not so bad--and the summer nights are very nice indeed.

"Lunch is an issue" depending on where you work. In the central city you can take your pick of dozens of places for lunch within a couple of blocks, and in most places you can find shady paths to avoid the sun if it's really a bother for you.

[NinaN]

We moved here from Texas and I much prefer the weather here. Summertime is hot, but it is less humid and much cooler in the evenings. Even on the hottest days of summer, you can go outside after dark and enjoy the weather. This year did have a lot of rain, but overall it's not so bad in the winter.

[mistermoose]

Winter= Rain, cloudy, foggy, and more rain!

[wburg]

But you don't have to shovel fog or rain off your driveway.

[KC6ZLV]

Originally Posted by eureka1

It rained up here for six months straight ,too, so don't feel left out. I used to live in Sac and it's a great place. You have about five months of superhot weather-

Five months? What is your idea of superhot? I consider 85 to be mild, but a lot of people who like to sit around and complain about the heat because they don't get exercise generally start making everyone's live around them miserable from their incessant whining at about 85 degrees. Sacramento's average high reaches 85 in the first week of June, reaches about 94 or 95 in the middle of July and goes back down to 85 by the end of September. That is about three months if you want to use 85 as a baseline. Personally, I consider 85 to be mildly-warm, 95 as warm, 100 as hot (I still go jogging when it is 100) and 105+ as super hot.


I would say July through August is fairly warm with some hot days.

[michcoop99]

I second this - it is not "super hot" for very long. People who complain about Sacramento weather make me laugh, they have clearly not spent a lot of time in the Northern or Southern parts of our country. The heat here is completely okay because we get the great, cool nights where the airconditioner goes off and the windows open up. In Florida you are running your a/c 24 hours a day because it's 85 degrees with seriously humididty at midnight. Which, by the way, is so much worse than 95 degrees of dry heat. UGH! I think the people who complain are from the Bay Area or something. Who wants to wear a coat at a baseball game in July? Everytime I go to Oakland for summer games I think there must be something wrong with people there who think they have better weather....

As for the rain, why does no one appreciate it? Do you really want Sac to look as dry and ugly as Vegas? While I don't love rain or anything, I do enjoy the green that it brings for the winter and spring. Seriously, listening to people bash our great weather is exhausting and I encourage those people to vacation in Buffalo in the winter and Miami in the summer.

Originally Posted by KC6ZLV

Five months? What is your idea of superhot? I consider 85 to be mild, but a lot of people who like to sit around and complain about the heat because they don't get exercise generally start making everyone's live around them miserable from their incessant whining at about 85 degrees. Sacramento's average high reaches 85 in the first week of June, reaches about 94 or 95 in the middle of July and goes back down to 85 by the end of September. That is about three months if you want to use 85 as a baseline. Personally, I consider 85 to be mildly-warm, 95 as warm, 100 as hot (I still go jogging when it is 100) and 105+ as super hot.


I would say July through August is fairly warm with some hot days.

[sacramento916]

The only ones who complain about Sacramento's weather are people from Coastal California.

California's coastal regions stay temperate all year long. Sacramento is roughly the same except it gets quite hot in the summer. Other than that, Sacramento's weather and lack of natural hazards (except flood potential) is way better than the rest of the continent.