Moving to Santa Rosa, CA (San Francisco, Sacramento: how much, homes, neighborhoods)

[cre8lite]

depending on your budget & fondness of heat/cold....


healdsburg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healdsburg,_California
warmer than santa rosa
about 30 mins north of sr
population = ~12k


ukiah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiah,_California
colder than santa rosa
about an hour north of sr
population = ~15k


both towns have your basic shopping needs (grocery, walmart, car dealerships, hotels, restaurants, etc). healdsburg will have more expensive housing than ukiah. ukiah has more of a sleepy town vibe, while healsburg is more up & coming

[saranshay]

I don't want hot year round, I don't mind it cooling down in the winter for a couple months. I don't want it to be long stretches of over 100 either. So it seems with the research, if you stick closer to the coast it is t going to be those long summers of 100 plus? Then winter around Santa Rosa, it solos down enough to wear a coat, but not a heavy winter coat? is that about accurate?
So if there are other places like that, I would love to hear.
I'm moving to escape the snow, 5 months of cold.....yeah Colorado isn't as bad as some places. But I can survive if I never have to shovel snow again.

[cre8lite]

neither locations have long stretches over 100 degrees. healdsburg might have 1 day per year? ditto with santa rosa. remember, it's wine country - it can't have extreme temps for the grapes to thrive. a hot/cold day here & there is ok, but nothing excessive.

if you select something along the coastline, there's a completely different climate over there - more damp, more fog. i'm guessing a high of 85 is abnormal for the coast.

[saranshay]

85 to me is perfect. So is that "hot" for Santa Rosa?

[NextStage]

Originally Posted by saranshay

85 to me is perfect. So is that "hot" for Santa Rosa?

Nope. On a rare day that it's 85 on the coast (and that IS rare) Santa Rosa would probably be in the high 90s/low 100s.

[TheGoodUsernamesWereTaken]

Originally Posted by saranshay

85 to me is perfect. So is that "hot" for Santa Rosa?

[zx636]

Originally Posted by saranshay

With all the rain and flooding, how has it been in Santa Rosa?

What about traffic?

Town is fine but flooding affects a lot of the rural roads during storms (especially this year.) Traffic in SR has gotten really tragic during commute times.

It's also very expensive for the average pay in the area... but probably for good reason. I love it here but would probably prefer to live in the Sacramento area, closer to the mountains. The summer weather here is nice though.

[saranshay]

How about the winter weather? It's 50 here in Colorado and it's warm, but 50 there might be cold because of the humidity. I am tired of freezing. And Colorado is fine if you want snow, but it really doesn't warm up til June.
you would just prefer to live closer to Sacramento because of the mountains? Why else? Is the traffic better?
Also, you say traffic is bad. Is it because of the damage of the rural roads?

[cre8lite]

just to give you something fun to look at, i found 2 web pages with local traffic. it doesn't cover the side streets, which a lot of people take to escape the freeways during rush hour, but it gives you a better idea of traffic flows. i can't find actual web cams - caltrans has them for other parts of the state, but not for sonoma county


right now the traffic is fine, but when you look at this after say 2pm, you'll see the difference
https://www.sigalert.com/map.asp?lat...-122.72551&z=1


scroll down to the bottom, the handful of roads AFTER rohnert park expressway are in santa rosa:
Bay Area Traffic Report 101 North - Current Traffic Speed, Jams, Incidents and Accidents

[zx636]

Originally Posted by saranshay

How about the winter weather? It's 50 here in Colorado and it's warm, but 50 there might be cold because of the humidity. I am tired of freezing. And Colorado is fine if you want snow, but it really doesn't warm up til June.
you would just prefer to live closer to Sacramento because of the mountains? Why else? Is the traffic better?
Also, you say traffic is bad. Is it because of the damage of the rural roads?

Winter weather is mostly the same as the rest of interior Northern California. Rains occasionally (or every day, this winter), 55-60 during the day, near freezing at night. Our spring weather can be affected by our proximity to the coast, often times the rest of Cali will be having a beautiful 75 degree day and it will be 57 here.


It's just really expensive. A house that is 550K here is 350K in the Sacramento area. And i'm a motorcyclist and outdoors guy, so i'd rather be closer to the mountains..

No, not because of damage. We just have too many people in California driving in their cars and not enough lanes on the freeway. And most of the freeways here are maxed out. I shudder to think about how bad traffic will be here in 20 years.