Most under-rated (and over-rated) places in CA… and why? (Sacramento: live, smog)

[mateo45]

Yeah, Sacto is definitely "underrated"…. especially with the many new 'perks' like the nearby airport positively bursting with cool Public Art, all the Delta waterways nearby and going right thru downtown, plus the always growing Japan Town, and now the presence of a large Vietnamese community (with lotsa great markets and restaurants to boot)!

[pistola916]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

^^^ OK. In that vein, I can see how Sacramento would be underrated, if you don't mind hot, humid weather in the summer. It's not a vacation place, but a good, family town. LA? To sprawl-y, too many freeways, etc. Though there are definitely some neighborhoods that are nice, if you can afford them.

Sacramento is not humid. And the hot summer weather is overblown. It does get hot but drastically cools off after sunset. The central city especially Midtown has become a trendy and "cool" neighborhood. New development in downtown such as the arena and residential projects will spur more exciting projects in the future. Plus the city's proximity to other destinations can't be beat. It is a nice advantage to take day trips to Tahoe, Bay Area without paying the cost of living in those places.

[MrCurmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

^^^ OK. In that vein, I can see how Sacramento would be underrated, if you don't mind hot, humid weather in the summer. It's not a vacation place, but a good, family town. LA? To sprawl-y, too many freeways, etc. Though there are definitely some neighborhoods that are nice, if you can afford them.

Humid? What in the world are you talking about? Sacramento might be "hot" to your tastes, but it is not humid.

And yes, the Bay Area is easily the most overrated part of California, bar none. Expensive, crime-ridden (the bad areas are very bad, and the "good" areas are still subject to relatively high rates of property crime), congested, filled with dilapidated infrastructure, and snobby people who are all convinced they're the greatest thing on earth.

[MrCurmudgeon]

Originally Posted by mateo45

Regardless whether it's Bakersfield and Fresno, or Los Angeles and San Francisco, we all know of certain places here that have a "reputation", one way or another. So in your own experience, which 'reps' are deserved, and which aren't (and why)? And are there any cities, towns or attractions in particular that you feel are especially under-, or over-rated in some way?

IMO:

Overrated
The Bay Area (all of it, but especially the SF-Oakland-Berkeley-Marin end)
Santa Barbara

Underrated
Sacramento
Gold Country
Eureka

These are not absolute bests or worsts, just how I rate them vs "conventional wisdom"... I am not going to pretend Stockton is better than, say, San Francisco, although I'd say the gap isn't as wide as most San Franciscans would like to believe it is.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by MrCurmudgeon

IMO:

Overrated
The Bay Area (all of it, but especially the SF-Oakland-Berkeley-Marin end)
Santa Barbara

Underrated
Sacramento
Gold Country
Eureka

Looks like the HeeHaw list.

[Chimérique]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

^^^ OK. In that vein, I can see how Sacramento would be underrated, if you don't mind hot, humid weather in the summer. It's not a vacation place, but a good, family town. LA? To sprawl-y, too many freeways, etc. Though there are definitely some neighborhoods that are nice, if you can afford them.

Sacramento is NOT HUMID in the summer, and Sacramento summers have one of the coolest evening, night and morning summer temps in the nation, I repeat the Nation. Only the Bay Area has consistently cooler evening, night and morning temps by national standards. SF is remarkable cool/cold for the summer.

2/3 of the Sacramento metro is in a Micro climate separate from the Central Valley that is consistently and dramatically cooled by the cold California Pacific regularly throughout the summer.

We call it the Delta Breeze, which really is a strong wind with occasional low clouds, that brings Sacramento's average low 90's daytime temps down into the upper 50's and low 60's by morning. The cooling begins in the very late afternoon and evening similar to a typical onshore flow that occurs on the California coast.

A typical Sacramento summer evening and night is 15-20 degrees cooler than Fresno or Bakersfield.

Those 90 degree daytime temps or the rare 100F has a "feels like" index rating of 5 degrees cooler, 90F in Sacramento is more like 85F, which is the opposite of places that really are humid like Austin, Texas where 90F feels like 95F.

[mateo45]

^ Cooler & 'apparently' less humid evenings maybe, but during the daytime not so much, when the summer heat sucks a lot of that Delta moisture into the Sacramento air! And the data bears this out, when you simply compare daytime peak Sacto humidity against the more northerly inland areas in the Sacramento Valley, like Oroville, Chico and Redding, all with substantially less peak daytime humidity during the summer months.

Sacramento humidity


Oroville humidity

[Chimérique]

Those graphs represent daily overall humidity for the entire day and night, a 24hour period. The humidity fluctuates during the day, and it is important to know what the humidity is during that hour of the day coupled with the temperature of that hour.

When people refer to a place being "humid" or "muggy", they mean it is humid when it is also coupled with temperatures in a range between 70F-100F plus.

In the summer, Sacramento is not humid when the temperatures are warmer. Sacramento has higher humidity readings in the night and early morning when the temperatures are much cooler.

In fact, the higher humidity you see in those graphs if coupled with hourly temperature readings throughout a 24hour period would show you that humidity actually brings relief to Sacramento because it comes when the temperatures are cooler.

Like the Coastal Valleys of California, Sacramento can have a high humidity readings but the temperature will be low enough like in the 50's or 60's to where that higher humidity means cooler comforting relief from a dry hot day.

[mateo45]

^ Having lived in Florida, am well aware what "humid" and "muggy" means! And Sacto definitely gets both high temps and high humidity in the summertime. Though it often cools down a lot by the evening, especially when combined with the breezes flowing in from the Bay Area (which BTW, also carry the smog up into the foothills). So relatively-speaking, yes it'll start to feel a lot cooler at night… kinda the same way your head stops hurting when you quit banging it against the wall!

Sacramento daily high & low temperatures

[Chimérique]

Originally Posted by mateo45

^ Cooler & 'apparently' less humid evenings maybe, but during the daytime not so much, when the summer heat sucks a lot of that Delta moisture into the Sacramento air! And the data bears this out, when you simply compare daytime peak Sacto humidity against the more northerly inland areas in the Sacramento Valley, like Oroville, Chico and Redding, all with substantially less peak daytime humidity during the summer months.

You got that wrong, Sacramento has low humidity during the warmer times of the day, average of 15-20% humidity. Sacramento has higher humidity during the cooler times like in the nights and mornings.

What your graph is not showing us is that Sacramento's higher humidity comes when the temps are below 55F-75F which actually brings relief, that humidity is the cool ocean Delta Breeze bringing relief to Sacramento.

Your graph is not showing us that Oroville, and the Northern parts of Sacramento Valley, have much higher overall temperatures especially during the evening, nights, and morning compared to Sacramento.

In the summer, Oroville and the Northern parts of the Sacramento Valley, DO NOT get consistent moisture fed cooling from the Delta Breeze and that is why your graph shows that it has lower humidity overall in a 24hour period.