Is Auburn is the place we want to be? (Sacramento: house, neighborhood)

[Den Mathias]

Auburn appears to be a very nice place to relocate to. I wonder though about the snow. The City data says it gets very little. Maybe the area gets more valley influenced weather. However the elevation says otherwise?

Any locals to clue me in on the weather type? I sure as heck don't want any tule fog or the valley heat! yuk!

Also, how is your air quality? I hope there is no swirling miasma as in Big Valley! Where is Lee Majors when you need him????

And lastly, the big topic for the foothills appears to be snakes and spiders. Any of thoise critters in the area? Are they epidemic???

[wburg]

Sacramento is a bit cooler in summer than the valley, but it still gets pretty warm in summer--maybe 90 degree summer days instead of the 100-110 degree days on the valley floor. They get a few inches of snow in winter but nothing dramatic. Tule fog, no--too high for that.

Air quality is a mixed bag: some stuff stays on the valley floor, but some pollutants rise, and the valley is like a big bathtub. Auburn is at roughly the level where the ring around the bathtub settles--in some cases, air in the foothills can be worse than the valley.

Snakes and spiders are pretty much everywhere, but they don't rove through the streets in mass waves or anything. I saw a dead rattlesnake in Folsom last month, but that's the first time I have personally seen one in a city neighborhood.

[hydro]

There isn't really any snow in Auburn. It may snow there, but rarely sticks, and melts quickly.

It is almost as hot as the valley.

Some fog? Not like Yolo Causeway type fog- but more than Placerville, Grass Valley, Meadow Vista, Applegate etc. (Less fog=more snow/ More fog= less snow) - pondering the validity of this statement.

Yes there are snakes and spiders, but certainly no more than any other neighboring county/city. If you live on acreage you might have more of a problem with snakes- but snakes generally don't like people. Outdoor cats are useful for deterring the snakes and their prey. As far as the spiders go, get rid of the webs when you see them and maybe even keep the daddy long legs around. I had countless black widows at my house (garage and backyard) at my home in valley suburb. Moved to acreage in foothills and I haven't seen one. Do you want to talk about mountain lions? It is better not to think about these predators, or the snakes, because you probably won't even know they are there.

[jkca1]

Auburn is very nice. It has great recreation areas. It will get cold at night during the winter and you may occasionally see a snow flake but that's the worst you will see.

[Mossy]

Where in the sacramento area is the best air quality?

[Jimbo15]

The prevailing winds tend to blow Eastward from the coast. As it gets hot, the bad air rises up the foothills during the day and drops down the hill at night.

This is why the air is worse in foothills than the valley during the summertime. Basically the pollution gets blown there and never quite gets blown out over the Sierras.

In the winter when the Tule Fog occurs, there is an inversion layer (its hotter in the foothills above the fog than below it). In the winter the air is cleaner in the foothills, but much more polluted in the Valley where its trapped by the inversion layer.

But rain cleans the air and it rains a lot more during wintertime, so the wintertime air pollution is rarely as bad as the summertime air pollution.

The further west you go, the more likely you are to live in area where the Delta breeze penetrates. So the air will be better in Davis than Roseville and even better still in Vallejo or Fairfield. If you can get above the fog like in say Mt. Diablo, but west of Sacramento, you will find pretty good air or if you go way up the Sierras to say Blue Canyon, again you will find pretty good air.

If your problem is allergies, just skip Sacramento and move to some place really dry like Phx or Salt Lake City. There is a year round growing season in the Sacramento Valley and something is in bloom just about year round. Most people who live here have some sort of allergies if they live here long enough.

In the dryier, desert enviroments the heat kills stuff off and their isn't as much stuff grown locally, so people have less problems with allergies. The really low humidities tend to keep the molds down that cause a lot of the indoor allergies. In the winter Sacramento is pretty damp (especially with the fog)