Gloom takes a holiday

I could (and perhaps should) write about various sports related events. Like Michael Phelps amazing trials and the interesting commercial that maybe only former swimmers can appreciate (it made me laugh each time I saw it). Or the Lakers unloading of the Big Paycheck and resigning of the lesser (but still daunting) Paycheck with an upside (who most fans here and elsewhere seem to hate with a passion right now). Or Lance the great, who lost 9 minutes in stage 5 and has now whittled it down to a 22 second deficit (with a couple more mountain stages yet to go) while putting more and more distance between himself and those considered as serious contenders.

The heck with all of that, I want to talk about the weather.

I've tried many times to explain the Southern California phenomenon of 'June Gloom' to people without any real success. I'm going to give it one more shot.

To those of you coming out to visit now, it's quite easy. If you are staying at the beach, you will still have mostly cloudy mornings and wonderful pleasant weather, lows in the mid sixties and highs in the mid to high seventies; unlike anything you can find anywhere else at this time of year. As time goes one, the coastal temperatures will increase, but only to about seventy / eighty (on average). Inland (and it doesn't take much to be considered for this category), our temperatures have gone banana's (as they always do). A friend who lives out past Riverside (to the east) related earlier this week that they're already regularly up into the 100's on a daily basis (I've lived out here for many years and still found that newsworthy). Prepare for temperatures in the low nineties (or better) and be happy if it's cooler. If you need to visit quite a bit inland (Riverside, the High Desert, etc.), bring a heat shield.

We should (given where we live), have a miserable time (weather wise) from April through October. Perched as we are in the southwest corner of the northern continent, we live on the edge of a great desert (and many think we should all burn in hell 'just because'). About ten days ago, we had an outside temperature of 56 degrees at 7:30 in the morning. We were in the midst of what I hoped might be a gloom extension. It didn't last. Tuesday morning, it was 77 when I looked at 8:15.

A couple factors come to our rescue, at least for a while. A relatively cool ocean and an onshore flow (winds from the west, southwest). The cool water, slowly warming land and onshore breeze helps to create what we call a marine layer (a perpetual low cloud layer). In the evening, it blows in over land and each day it is slowly evaporated by the sun. Toss in some additions because of smog and it takes even longer. When it goes away, as it did in April of this year, temperatures rapidly climb as they should. We had a few miserable days back in April where it hit the low 100's when none of us were ready for it. It's one thing to ramp up gradually to high temperatures and quite another thing altogether when the daily high jumps from the the mild mid seventies to the scorching low hundreds over a couple days time. However uncomfortable this makes us, it does happen here and elsewhere.

I've been paying attention to this phenomenon for several years now and am still amazed by it. Perhaps because of the finality of its very regular disappearance, it is a marvel. Given a week of cloudless mornings after early to mid June, the temperatures will quickly adjust upward, and even a resurgence of clouds on the coastal plain won't reach us. The hillsides seem too hot to allow the coastal clouds past without breaking them up. The difference in temperatures is pronounced (as is the humidity difference on the east coast). We're only about 12 miles (or so) inland as the crow flies, but we're closer to 20 miles inland as the clouds fly (coming across the Oxnard plain). Combined with the western edge of the Santa Monica mountains (the Potrero Grade) and the Conejo Grade and Norwegian Grade (if you're local, also see this story about the grades creation which includes information on how the Olsen and Pederson names came to be so popular in the city), it's tough for the clouds to find a way here once the temperature starts climbing. This page about local hills from a biking perspective is also quite informative.

Summer is here, and there is no going back. We'll have some wonderful days and some blazingly hot, wilting days; such is the nature of the area. Mostly, what we're going to see is bright days with perfect blue skies. What we aren't going to see until summer passes are days (and weeks) on end of temperate (mild) weather.

So what is 'June Gloom'? Mostly, it's the way that the local environment helps to stave off the beginning of summer. When it ends, it seems almost as if someone has thrown a switch and it'll be like this until mid to late October, unless we get some rain (that would be a change).