Why doesn't California ever get more extreme weather like everywhere else? (San Diego: area, county)

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by Fontucky

And hellacious, asskicking Santa Ana/Diablo/katabatic winds...

I think you mean the Santana winds.

[californio sur]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

I think you mean the Santana winds.

Fontucky knows what he\she is talking about. The offshore winds in SoCal are called "santa ana" but in the Bay Area they are called Diablo winds due to the Diablo mountains the wind funnels through.

The temps in Florida today are unbelievable and far colder than anything experienced in SoCal lowlands. Cities like Tampa & Orlando have not risen above the 30's this afternoon & it is raining [some sleet reported]. Miami is still around 45F for a high temp. Sub-freezing temps may occur right down the Florida peninsula tonight & only the Florida Keys will escape heavy frost.

I think Los Angeles has had a lowest maximum of only 49F according to records I have seen & that is quite rare. But when it rains here cold nights don't happen. The day or two after a cold storm passes can be the coldest in SoCal on clear calm nights.

Texas has also experienced a very cold winter so far and crops have been damaged in the south end of the state. This is going to be considered a very significant freeze in the South that may break records for length of cold weather [already over a week].

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by californio sur

Fontucky knows what he\she is talking about. The offshore winds in SoCal are called "santa ana"

No, the correct name for them in California is "Santana". "Santa Ana" is a bastardization that apparently started sometime in the mid-20th Century. They're called "Santana" after satan, as they are the devil winds. Same as the Diablos up North.

[Mach50]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

No, the correct name for them in California is "Santana". "Santa Ana" is a bastardization that apparently started sometime in the mid-20th Century. They're called "Santana" after satan, as they are the devil winds. Same as the Diablos up North.

That is right, it appears that they started being called "Santa Ana winds" in the 50's, because they came from the direction of Santa Ana.

When I arrived in Los Angeles in 1953, the winds were commonly referred to as Santana winds. Humphrey Bogart named his sailboat after the winds, The Santana. I recall that the radio weather announcers called them Santana winds, but then a gradual change began to take place and Santa Ana winds became more and more in use. At first I laughed at the ignorance of the announcers who used Santa Ana in place of the correct Santana, but by the 60's it seems that Santana had been swept into history. If there are any extant 1950's era (or earlier) radio broadcasts with weather news, they would provide good evidence and a good start to going back to what was a more meaningful and accurate word for the Devil Winds.

I, too, always heard them referred to as a "santana" of the "santanas". I was born in Eagle Rock in 1952; my father moved there in 1923. He always said the term was "santana" (and that newcomers who thought it was "Santa Ana" were wrong). I, too, seem to recall that it was radio and TV weathermen (few of whom were probably born in L.A.) using the term "Santa Ana" (which usage would have prompted my father's corrective response of such ignorance). The plain facts are that (1) the TV and radio had a larger audience than my father or (other oldtimers) and (b) newcomers unaware of the term "santana" kept pouring in to the area. Think about it: the Santa Ana Canyon spills out into Anaheim, Garden Grove and Westminster--areas sparsely populated when the wind was named. [In 1900 the city of Los Angeles already had a population of over 100,000 people; Paadena nearly 10,000; while Anaheim's population then was less than 1,500]. The same winds whip into and affect Los Angeles and Pasadena through the San Gabriel Valley just as powerfully as they affect Anaheim and westward of Anaheim. So "why" would Angelenos have named the wind "Santa Ana" and "who" was in the Anaheim (and westward) area to have coined a name for the wind? If the name goes back to the Spanish settlement, why, again would the phenomenon been specially associated with Santa Ana Canyon?

My father moved to Southern California in the 1940s, by then he was an experienced off-shore yachtsman. I remember him and his sailor friends refering to the winds as Santanas. He and the other old time sailors never adopted the term 'Santa Anas' for the winds, even though most of the rest of the culture did.
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I'm an old guy 80plus; Sanatanas -- hot wind off the desert. "Santa Ana wind" is a dumbing down of the old pronunciation!

Talk:Santana wind - Wiktionary

Etymology

Disputed. Possibly from Santa Ana wind, possibly from Spanish vientos de Sanatanas (“‘Satan's winds’”), in turn thought to be a translation of native names for the same winds.

Santana wind - Wiktionary

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vientos_de_Santa_Ana


Many spanish speaking people actually do still call this Sanatanas...

[CAVA1990]

Right on! Sometimes you just gotta defend the old ways against them young whippersnappers. Thanks.

Oh and don't go out on the ocean when the Santanas are blowing.

[KC6ZLV]

Keep in mind that what is severe is relative to where you are. When the temperatures go down to 20 degrees in the inland valleys of California there is a lot of damage to agriculture. Buildings aren't constructed to withstand the loading from snow, so 6 inches of snow has caved in the roofs a few times. When 5 inches of snow fell in 1999 on Hwy 99 in Tulare County, the trucks had to pull over and wait for several hours. Snow rarely occurs in that part of California so we don't have snow removal equipment to deal with it. Really, freezes in general are bad news. Although places like Sacramento and Fresno experience 25 degree nights every year, people don't acknowledge it, usually because they are sleeping when it is that cold. So, they take off early one day and have an accident due to frosty roads.

Likewise, 95 degrees doesn't seem hot, but just ask any of the people who live in areas of the country what the outcome is after two weeks of 95 degree temperatures where it is normally in the low 80s over the course of the summer. People go out and work in it, they aren't acclimated to hot temperatures, and they kill themselves.

The big benefit the weather has on the West Coast is there are few surprises. Even the severe weather is easy to forecast. The things meteorologist have trouble with are usually minor. They are usually aware there will be snow at lower elevations, but it is sometimes difficult to forecast if the possibility is in Sacramento or another location nearby. In December the forecast was for snow in Sacramento south to about Stockton. This area saw very little snow. I think Sonoma County ended up receiving the snow instead. The micro-climates created from the mountain ranges offer some complexity, but whatever occurs as a result is often limited to a small area.

I think the biggest surprise in the last several years was the big heatwave in 2005. Fresno has a lot of very hot mornings, but the low of 94 was surprising. 100 degrees overnight on some of the ridgetops was insane, as was 110 degree temperatures right up to the beach in some places. People living in those places do not have air conditioning.

People kind of learn how to live with the weather they have. I'm sure people in Russia are laughing at the news about the freeze in the US. Most of December, January and February stays below 25 degrees in many parts of the Russian Federation. The only thing that slows them down in the winter are blizzards, only because it is hard to see through blowing snow.

[Clarks]

California weather is a function the Japan Current, becoming the Humboldt Current, and the gulf of Alaska. The predominate westerlies inhibit the continental cold from affecting California, usually.

California's coldest recorded temperature is -45 at my old house, but before I was born. The coldest I have seen there was -35 for a week straight. Snomo started, Auto did not.

Highest Recorded temp was 134 in 1913 in Death Valley. I have been in 125 degree temps there.

One of the coldest towns in the nation on year round average is Truckee CA. It fights with Gunnison Colorado and West Yellowstone for that honor.

We saw snow every month, but not every month every year.

[Fontucky]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

I think you mean the Santana winds.

Being former CDF, as well as having a CDF presence in my family as far back as the thirties, I use the term they use.

[CAVA1990]

Compared to the abominable use of "Cali" it's a minor infraction. Bogie and I forgive you.

[Fontucky]

Thank you. I'll now be able to sleep tonight.