Do we underestimate and downplay how Great Sacramento weather really is? (Fresno: movies, drivers license)

[dontbelievehim]

[Chimérique]

So for first time in 5-7 years my Sacramento neighborhood had thick tule fog. About 30 feet visibility, different layers and levels. It was nice having the fog back! But the forecast is for the low 70s!

[dontbelievehim]

Originally Posted by Chimérique

So for first time in 5-7 years my Sacramento neighborhood had thick tule fog. About 30 feet visibility, different layers and levels. It was nice having the fog back! But the forecast is for the low 70s!

Foggiest day in a decade for fresno that day, too. Brought back some memories.

66 for Sacramento tomorrow
80s for fresno
99 for Phoenix
Crazy day tomorrow.
Been nice in the CV, hoping it stays that way.

Ttyl

[Chimérique]

Yes its been great Sacramento weather. All Green Too!

April 10, 7:45PM

Phoenix - 88F
Vegas - 85F
Fresno - 70F

Sacramento - 61F
Portland - 57F

I've been admiring all of the Trees in downtown Sacramento especially the ones native to the Sacramento Valley such as the Valley Oak (Quercus lobata) - our wet winters and dry warm summers are perfect for them.

The Valley Oak is a very beautiful tree, google it. They get up to 100 feet tall with a 100 foot wide canopy. They can live 400-600 years!! It's easily the most Beautiful tree in Sacramento and its NATIVE to SAC.

There used to be FORESTS of Valley Oaks in Sacramento and up and down the Sacramento Valley. In the early years of Sacramento most were cut down to build the new city, then goldminers cut them down, then Farmers cut them down, later housing developers cut them down.

Our Old Growth Forests of Valley Oaks in Sacramento is gone --- but they are native, so just plant them, The Sacramento Tree Foundation encourages you to plant them! I just planted one. They grow fast - 30-40 feet in 10 years.

The next time some coastal snob tells you there are no native Trees in the Central Valley and that the Valley is a desert point them to the Valley Oak - it needs lots of water and Sacramento gets the right amount in the winter.

http://www.sactree.com/assets/GuideT...mentoOaks4.pdf

Native Trees - Sacramento Tree Foundation

[49erfan916]

It's been warm in Phoenix but I enjoyed it. I bet when i come back to sacramento, I will freeze my ass off.

[tstieber]

Thank you for that wonderful guide to the local oak trees! I grew up with the same oak/grassland habitat in Walnut Creek and feel a really true sense of place and connection to our state because of their majesty. Sunset Magazine also wrote a great article about them not too long ago: https://www.sunset.com/garden/flowers-plants/oak-tree

I love the oaks so much that I was really excited when we moved a bit farther inland in San Diego, because they're not so common near our coastal areas, which tend to have mostly sycamores in riparian habitats and Torrey Pines along the coast, but out here and certainly in our local foothills, they are native again, and the smell of the dirt and the oaks, for me, conveys a sense of home. I love that California has native oaks almost all over the state (sometimes the same species, sometimes different, but they all look like "California" oaks, which are very different from Easy Coast oaks).

Please allow me to correct a couple of your comments about the oaks, Chimerique: the native oaks were NOT in what you would call "Old Growth" forest. According to Wikipedia, "Old-growth forests tend to have large trees and standing dead trees, multilayered canopies with gaps that result from the deaths of individual trees, and coarse woody debris on the forest floor." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-growth_forest) This is what you would find in the dark, dense cedar forests of the PNW or the redwood forests of California, but the oaks in California, even in their original habitat, were more what you would call "woodlands" (hence the name of that city), although they sometimes could be called forests in the nontraditional sense. The article you posted actually described the way the grew: "They are not crowded as in our forests, but grow scattered about in groups or singly, with open grass-covered glades between them… There is not undergrowth beneath them, and as far as the eye can reach, when standing among them, an unending series of great trunks is seen rising from the lawn-like surface." So I wanted to make that distinction, because the Old Growth Forest description is not accurate. You can still see how the native oaks grow in many of California's foothills, where they can create a sort of open, low canopy with their very wide crowns but stand far apart from each other.

The other correction I wanted to make is that the native oak *forests* actually did not naturally survive only on rainfall but instead grew "along the flood prone rivers and streams" in riparian habitats, as per the article. You might find individual oaks growing outside of those year-round water sources, but they would be fewer in number and density, and they would not create a denser forest without the year-round water.

Sacramento is actually a tough dry/hot-summer climate to sustain dense native forests, but the oaks prove how adaptable plants evolve to meet those challenges.

Originally Posted by Chimérique

Yes its been great Sacramento weather. All Green Too!

April 10, 7:45PM

Phoenix - 88F
Vegas - 85F
Fresno - 70F

Sacramento - 61F
Portland - 57F

I've been admiring all of the Trees in downtown Sacramento especially the ones native to the Sacramento Valley such as the Valley Oak (Quercus lobata) - our wet winters and dry warm summers are perfect for them.

The Valley Oak is a very beautiful tree, google it. They get up to 100 feet tall with a 100 foot wide canopy. They can live 400-600 years!! It's easily the most Beautiful tree in Sacramento and its NATIVE to SAC.

There used to be FORESTS of Valley Oaks in Sacramento and up and down the Sacramento Valley. In the early years of Sacramento most were cut down to build the new city, then goldminers cut them down, then Farmers cut them down, later housing developers cut them down.

Our Old Growth Forests of Valley Oaks in Sacramento is gone --- but they are native, so just plant them, The Sacramento Tree Foundation encourages you to plant them! I just planted one. They grow fast - 30-40 feet in 10 years.

The next time some coastal snob tells you there are no native Trees in the Central Valley and that the Valley is a desert point them to the Valley Oak - it needs lots of water and Sacramento gets the right amount in the winter.

http://www.sactree.com/assets/GuideT...mentoOaks4.pdf

Native Trees - Sacramento Tree Foundation

[Chimérique]

tstieber, thanks for the feedback. I was using the term "Old Growth Forests" in relative terms, specifically to mean these Oaks were numerous by todays count, and there were many older ones standing, hence there were more larger ones as well, remember they live to be 400-600 years, another reason why I use the term "Old Growth" to describe them.

Sacramento has two of the largest rivers(Sacramento and American) in the whole state so there was plenty of water to sustain them, not mention all the smaller creeks and streams feeding them such as the Consumes River and Arden Creek in Sacramento County.

There are 20 species of Oaks in the Sacramento Valley, the largest and tallest being Quercus lobata , and its the largest in all of California. Coastal areas of California have other species of Oaks.

Instead of riding my bike to work today, I took the light rail and got off 3 stops before my normal stop in downtown Sacramento so I could walk and admire the trees. Sacramento literally has 30-60 trees per block!

At least 1/3 of them (per block) are over 40 feet tall. Many of these trees are not native to Sacramento yet they still get really big and strong, but inevitably the tree that out lasts them all is the Valley Oak (Quercus lobar) and there is a good reason for that....they are native to the Sacramento Valley.

I counted 7 giant ones in my short walk, and another 7 medium size ones and 5 newly planted ones. It's really the trees that make downtown/midtown Sacramento special. Another new outdoor Beer Garden is opening up downtown and low and behold a giant Valley Oak stands nearby.

8:45 PM, April 11, 2018

Phoenix 86F - High Pollution Alert

Vegas 82F - High Winds

Sacramento 51F Rain - Air Quality Very Good

Portland 46F Rain - Air Quality Excellent

[tstieber]

Chimerique, good point about all the waterway with which Sacramento is so blessed. With the low elevation of the valley and the abundance of fresh water, there is the benefit of having places where groundwater suffices to support the native oak woodlands/forests.

They truly are glorious trees, my absolute favorite part of California!

Originally Posted by Chimérique

tstieber, thanks for the feedback. I was using the term "Old Growth Forests" in relative terms, specifically to mean these Oaks were numerous by todays count, and there were many older ones standing, hence there were more larger ones as well, remember they live to be 400-600 years, another reason why I use the term "Old Growth" to describe them.

Sacramento has two of the largest rivers(Sacramento and American) in the whole state so there was plenty of water to sustain them, not mention all the smaller creeks and streams feeding them such as the Consumes River and Arden Creek in Sacramento County.

There are 20 species of Oaks in the Sacramento Valley, the largest and tallest being Quercus lobata , and its the largest in all of California. Coastal areas of California have other species of Oaks.

Instead of riding my bike to work today, I took the light rail and got off 3 stops before my normal stop in downtown Sacramento so I could walk and admire the trees. Sacramento literally has 30-60 trees per block!

At least 1/3 of them (per block) are over 40 feet tall. Many of these trees are not native to Sacramento yet they still get really big and strong, but inevitably the tree that out lasts them all is the Valley Oak (Quercus lobar) and there is a good reason for that....they are native to the Sacramento Valley.

I counted 7 giant ones in my short walk, and another 7 medium size ones and 5 newly planted ones. It's really the trees that make downtown/midtown Sacramento special. Another new outdoor Beer Garden is opening up downtown and low and behold a giant Valley Oak stands nearby.

8:45 PM, April 11, 2018

Phoenix 86F - High Pollution Alert

Vegas 82F - High Winds

Sacramento 51F Rain - Air Quality Very Good

Portland 46F Rain - Air Quality Excellent

[dontbelievehim]

Wowza
23mph winds[per google] for Fresno right now(30mph+ gusts)
Sf topped at 21mph today
Sacramento with 5 mph breezes
[Wish this wind would last longer ]
You ever see sac outwind San Francisco, chim? Is that possible?

Edit: nice tree article, BTW. Glad to see some interesting valley history.

[TrueLegendsGrill]

New to thread, very interesting