San diego coastal weather is extremely overrated! (Santa Ana, Santa Monica: living, beach)

[sav858]

The weather in SD has been below normal since pretty much April/May. Every single month since then and the vast majority of days have been below normal, either by a little or a lot. I was just in SD for a day on Monday and Tuesday and I could not believe how cloudy it was for late Sept. Usually the marine layer is the worst in Spring and Summer, Fall and Winter tend to be the sunniest. Usually by late Sept you don't see as many coastal clouds yet not a single day so far this month has recorded a normal temperature. Even last summer was below normal although not nearly as bad as this past summer; I've never seen so many record low maximum daily temps as they've been setting them all summer. Also I've found North County slightly cloudier than Central SD's coast. I really can't believe SD has been so far below normal for so long, yeah I understand a few weeks here and there below normal but months is just ridiculous. The cloud cover this past summer was just unreal, I almost lost it, haha, so I understand why one would be pissed after this summer we just had.

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by sav858

I was just in SD for a day on Monday and Tuesday.

Sav did you move away from SD?

[sav858]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

Sav did you move away from SD?

Yes right after Labor Day, back up in the Bay Area for now.

[BluSpark]

To the OP: Your title says is all...as one who grew up in SoCalif. I have to agree 100%....except I'd include all of coastal SoCalif. in your title.

Granted this summer has been a particulary cool and foggy one. The older I get the more I long for a place like Hawaii.....

The Beach Boys and the Chamber of Commerce like to paint a different picture but fog, cloud cover, and cold ocean water are an unfortunate reality. I prefer living somewhat inland for greater warmth and sun....though not TOO far inland.

[sunsprit]

LOL ... as one who grew up in Point Loma (esp around the Shelter Island area and then close to the NEL), and spent a lot of time in Sunset Cliffs, Ocean/Mission/Pacific Beach, and all the way up to La Jolla through to Del Mar. I was there to see Mission Bay dredged out to become a useful development area from the old tidal mud flats ....

I can recall years of fishing for Bonita/Albacore/Yellowtail right off Point Loma (sometimes as close as the Whistler buoy), when the ocean currents were much warmer some years. There were even a few years when the water was so warm that Yellowtail were in San Diego Bay. But we also had years of cooler waters, where those fish didn't appear and we had to go pretty far South to find the warm waters. This is a cycle that's been repeated, slowly, over many years if the stories of fishing the Bay and just offshore that were told to me by the "old timers" as a younster were true .... I've no reason to doubt them.

Of course, this affected the overcast layer formations and fog on Point Loma. I spent many a morning walking to school (Collier JHS and Point Loma HS) in dense fogs, and ... at the time ... it seemed pretty cold. We had to bundle up pretty well then to head out fishing or sailing (old navy peacoats layered over sweatshirts, and wear woolen watchcaps), and it wasn't exactly pleasantly comfortable in our surplus clothing for outdoors. We did a lot of early AM fishing and diving before school, and spent many a day after school out on the water as soon as possible after school ... and went out at sunup during the summer before summer school for years, when it could also be rather chilly on the water.

Now that I've lived for 40+ years in a truly cold/brutal climate, San Diego ... even in the winter months ... is pretty balmy all year long (unless it's got a Santa Ana heat cycle) to me. I go sailing with friends at year-end and they're all bundled up with layers and wetsuits, complaining about how miserable the conditions are ... and I'm just wearing a waterproof windshirt and sweats and watchcap and gloves.

We used to have the use of a beach front house at St Malo, up the coast a bit from SD ... and it was always interesting to see the variability of the weather patterns through the years, although there wasn't a huge shift in overall temps. But there were certainly some days when the wind and surf combined to make an otherwise gorgeous location rather unpleasant. Same thing for a friend up North at Oxnard ....

It's all a matter of what you're used to, I guess. I wouldn't miss the challenges of the winters where I'm at now to go back to such a temperate climate as San Diego. With modern clothing fabrics, San Diego is very easy to live in all year 'round, whether it's cooler or warmer than historical averages.

[MissNM]

San Diego weather is no day at the beach. At least not like a day at other beaches . . . warm, sunny beaches with warm water. But hey, we don't have the flip side of most beach places either: wet weather, hurricanes, humidity, flat terrain, etc.

[Oerdin]

You get the fog on the coast especially during winter though it stays cool in the summer time when the inland people get santa anna winds.

[windnsea00]

Originally Posted by Oerdin

You get the fog on the coast especially during winter though it stays cool in the summer time when the inland people get santa anna winds.

Not exactly, Santa Ana winds are caused by a high pressure system over the Great Basin which allows the wind patterns to reverse. Thus instead of moving from the typical west to east they go east to west. In doing so, the air dries out considerably and any form of marine layer is pushed far out over the ocean. This leaves so.cal with dry, dusty and most of the time very warm air temps.

[Trade Wind]

Originally Posted by BluSpark

Granted this summer has been a particulary cool and foggy one. The older I get the more I long for a place like Hawaii.....

The Beach Boys and the Chamber of Commerce like to paint a different picture but fog, cloud cover, and cold ocean water are an unfortunate reality.

As a nomadic beach bum who loves heat/sunshine/and warm oceans…every time I read a paragraph like that…I know I too was made to live along the coast of the Gulf/South Atlantic states. This morning my feet touched 84 F Atlantic waters near Stuart, Florida – it was amazing.


.

[Jenkay]

Originally Posted by windnsea00

Not exactly, Santa Ana winds are caused by a high pressure system over the Great Basin which allows the wind patterns to reverse. Thus instead of moving from the typical west to east they go east to west. In doing so, the air dries out considerably and any form of marine layer is pushed far out over the ocean. This leaves so.cal with dry, dusty and most of the time very warm air temps.

And actually Santa Ana conditions are pretty much the only time when it's likely to be warmer at the coast than out East.