Does California have the most unique climate, geography in the world?

[yowps3]

Originally Posted by george960

Perth is hardly semi-arid, even though rainfall has been getting lower in recent years. The average rainfall is still above 700mm.

These whole climate classifications just take into consideration rainfall and to some extent sunshine hours..

There's much more to it than that lol

[nei]

Originally Posted by yowps3

Nice summary. Having been to Southen Europe, though not Spain. I really wouldn't say it's the same as Southen California.

Greece in summer is much hotter than coastal areas of say Los Angeles. In fact in California it's not uncommon to wake up to cloud/overcast & foggy weather in summer which clears up by midday.

The Atlantic coast of Portugal & Spain is the most similar spot to California in Western Europe. Nights aren't quite as cold, though. Further South, the Atlantic coast of Morocco is rather similar to SoCal.

I guess a combination of Mountains, desert, forest, ocean, California current & the general topography in such a compact area is the reason for the the way it is. Aesthetically speaking California is spectacular.. An I'm just talking about the southern point of Caliornia to San Francisco. Don't know what there's further from SF lol

It gradually gets wetter as you go north. But there a lot of microclimates. The same pattern of foggy summer mornings that clear up in the afternoon (hopefully) continues up the coast.

California has one of the more intense dry seasons of Mediterranean climates.

[yowps3]

Funny thing is that Perth actually feels dryer than all the main cities of California.

The Australian sun is extremly strong and literally penetrates into your skin.

[Derek40]

Originally Posted by theunbrainwashed

Yes, the Benguela Current. But, it is like Adelaide and Perth, no microclimates; which is not the case for California and Chile which have microclimates thanks to the topography.

California is most unique in having the greatest temperature gradients from the coast to places 30K's, or 20 miles inland.
Places like Perth and Adelaide the heat reaches right to the coast.
The only places that may rival California for temperature gradients are in the mild deserts of places like Eucla in Oz, but there are no weather stations inland.
The Namibian desert coastline is similar, but milder again.
I spent a summer in Esperance WA, and it was not uncommon to have the temp drop 10C from around 40Ks from the coast to the actual coast itself.

[Tall Tiger]

Originally Posted by yowps3

Would you guys say that California which isn't very big has some of the workd's most unique climate, geography and natural scenery?

I've travelled around the world and California is the only place which had its own unique climate.. Nothing like it.

Has all the extreme diversity in a near proximate area created such unique climate? Example the California Current?..

Arica Chile is on the Pacific Coast of northern Chile and they average a total of 1" or rain every 33 years. The daily hi varies from 65-80 year round and the daily low averages from 57-68. To me that's much more unique than California. Cali does have a very pleasant chlimate in much of it.