California Climate Zone

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Froonp
About this, being in the North Temperate Weather Zone does not mean severe winter climate. This is the climate of all Europe up to Poland and England. That's not that harsh. Moreover, here is an abstract from a precipitation map around California and Nevada, and we can see that the area in those mountains is as wet as the Sierra Nevada, so I prefer leaving the boundary where I put it initialy.

No problem, I thought we were worried about snow, not simply total precipitation. There is plenty of precipitation along the coast, but it rarely snows below 4,000 feet, so there is almost never any snow in California south of Eureka. You have to go to the Sierras to find those kinds of elevations. The big rain storms that blow in along the coast don't turn into blizzards until they hit the higher altitudes of the Sierras.

Jim

Edit: Your snow chart is definatley wrong. I haven't seen snow for decades in the areas it lists as having 5 days a year with an inch or more of snowfall.

[Sewerlobster]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
Edit: Your snow chart is definatley wrong. I haven't seen snow for decades in the areas it lists as having 5 days a year with an inch or more of snowfall.

Here's where we need to be careful, Patrice's map is clearly from 1970; so that'd explain the no seeing for decades. The question should be: what was the weather like in 1939-45? All that aside, I think the proposed changes are fair.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: SewerStarFish
Here's where we need to be careful, Patrice's map is clearly from 1970; so that'd explain the no seeing for decades. The question should be: what was the weather like in 1939-45? All that aside, I think the proposed changes are fair.

I agree with you 100%, but the question then remains. Even if there were 10 days a year with an inch of snow back then, does that even merit 1 impulse a year in game with snow conditions? My take on it would be, there should never be snow conditions south of Eureka unless it’s in the Sierras.

Granted this is California and it won’t matter in the game 99.999% of the time.

Jim

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: SewerStarFish

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
Edit: Your snow chart is definatley wrong. I haven't seen snow for decades in the areas it lists as having 5 days a year with an inch or more of snowfall.

Here's where we need to be careful, Patrice's map is clearly from 1970; so that'd explain the no seeing for decades. The question should be: what was the weather like in 1939-45? All that aside, I think the proposed changes are fair.

The map has this notice :

"for the period 1931-1965"

[Sewerlobster]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: SewerStarFish
Here's where we need to be careful, Patrice's map is clearly from 1970; so that'd explain the no seeing for decades. The question should be: what was the weather like in 1939-45? All that aside, I think the proposed changes are fair.

The map has this notice :
"for the period 1931-1965"

Great, so clearly the area you have now marked as Mediterranean is the area depicted as having had an average of 1 day of snow a year. Except maybe for those coastal hexes in Northern California and Oregon. But not every hex in a weather zone must actually have the snow, IMHO, as ZOC can extend from other hexes and other abstractions of supply may dictate.

So I agree with your reluctance to extend the Med zone farther north. It's kind of neat that you are paying such attention to details like this. Thanks.

[Grapeshot Bob]

I just thought I'd add something to this conversation: snow doesn't necessarily equate to either severe cold or high volumes of snow.
 
The arctic is extremely cold (I live in canada and I know what I'm talikng about). The arctic also gets very little snow. In fact it gets so little precipitation (in the form of snow) that it is classified as a desert.
 
All you need to make snow is precipitation and a ground temperature below freezing.
 
 
GSB

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: SewerStarFish
Great, so clearly the area you have now marked as Mediterranean is the area depicted as having had an average of 1 day of snow a year. Except maybe for those coastal hexes in Northern California and Oregon. But not every hex in a weather zone must actually have the snow, IMHO, as ZOC can extend from other hexes and other abstractions of supply may dictate.

Not only the map with the snow, but also the map with the precipitations, shown in post #16. The area I put as Mediterranean is the one with nearly no precipitation.
Even with that, snow and storm and rain are not uncommon under Med Weather Zone.

[lomyrin]

In San DIego north County in the town of Escondido there was a snowfall of about 1 inch early in the morning one winter day in 1963.  It lasted for perhaps 2 to 3 hours on the ground.
 
Since then no snow.
 
Lars 

[Mike Dubost]

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

In San DIego north County in the town of Escondido there was a snowfall of about 1 inch early in the morning one winter day in 1963.  It lasted for perhaps 2 to 3 hours on the ground.

Since then no snow.

Lars 

I wondered about the accuracy of the map showing some days of snow in California, so I consulted a local expert (well, OK, my grandmother [:'(]). She said that yes, San Francisco did get a few days of snow in this time period. She specifically mentioned a 1-inch snow fall during a local college football game. I therefore have no remaining reseverations about the map.

Thank you one and all for the effort here. I originally expected about 5 replies, so I am somewhat surprised by the volume of discussion I generated with the original post. I am not complaining at all, just surprised and a bit gratified by willingness to consider suggestions from "newbies".

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Mike Dubost
Thank you one and all for the effort here. I originally expected about 5 replies, so I am somewhat surprised by the volume of discussion I generated with the original post. I am not complaining at all, just surprised and a bit gratified by willingness to consider suggestions from "newbies".

Well, I had this issue on the back of my head since some months ago, when someone already had pointed out this issue. So this time I took the time to try to sort it out the best we could.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Mike Dubost
Thank you one and all for the effort here. I originally expected about 5 replies, so I am somewhat surprised by the volume of discussion I generated with the original post. I am not complaining at all, just surprised and a bit gratified by willingness to consider suggestions from "newbies".

Also, you may be a newbie to the WiF game, and to the MWiF Forums, you look like you're not a newbie in knowledge of California (39 year old California native), so I jumped on the occasion to stir up the reactions of the others of your kind on that issue. Your opinion was precious, and as it went in exactly the same direction as the opinion of the rest of the other California native, this made us found a solution.

[Mike Dubost]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Mike Dubost
Thank you one and all for the effort here. I originally expected about 5 replies, so I am somewhat surprised by the volume of discussion I generated with the original post. I am not complaining at all, just surprised and a bit gratified by willingness to consider suggestions from "newbies".

Also, you may be a newbie to the WiF game, and to the MWiF Forums, you look like you're not a newbie in knowledge of California (39 year old California native), so I jumped on the occasion to stir up the reactions of the others of your kind on that issue. Your opinion was precious, and as it went in exactly the same direction as the opinion of the rest of the other California native, this made us found a solution.

I am glad that you have that attitude. I have been involved with other forums (not, I hasten to add, Matrix Games), where the longevity on the forum is the sole criteria for judgement of the worth of contributers. It happens, and I am glad when I find a place it does not.

[mlees]

There are some places in So Cal that get snow, but they are the higher elevation ones.
 
The "Grapevine", a stretch of highway that leads north out of L.A., goes over the Tejon Pass, and was paved before WW2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridge_Route It gets "snowed in" every winter, and ground traffic may be halted for several days while they plow it.
 
The Cajon Pass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cajon_Pass also suffers from this problem. This connects the San Bernadino area to the "high desert" areas to the north and north east.
 
Game wise, I guess it doesn't have much effect. Your call. If forced to pick, the "Med Zone" climate is better than the North Temperate one, for game play purposes.
 
Heh.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is what the map looks like after changing most of California to Med weather.

Azure - NT - North Temperate
Orange - MD - Mediterranean
Gray - AR - Arctic
Green - NM - North Monsoon

[lomyrin]

I think the part of Baja California and the golf shown all ought to be Mediterranean.
 
Lars  

[iamspamus]

Looking at the map, I'd question whether SF is Med or N Temp. That place gets cold. I'll leave it to the experts. Just my two cents.

Jason

[Mike Dubost]

ORIGINAL: iamspamus

Looking at the map, I'd question whether SF is Med or N Temp. That place gets cold. I'll leave it to the experts. Just my two cents.

Jason

Believe it or not, the temperature in "the City" (what, there's more than 1? [:'(]) is quite mild. If the City gets a week of hard frost, it is an unusually cold winter. The whole "coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in SF" feeling is a combination of wind chill and damp from the fog.

I looked on weatherbase.com to get some actual numbers, and I found the record low for the 72-year temperature record is 27 F (approximately -3 C). Average January low temperature is 46 F.

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: Mike Dubost

I looked on weatherbase.com to get some actual numbers, and I found the record low for the 72-year temperature record is 27 F (approximately -3 C). Average January low temperature is 46 F.

Not fair, we had -3 C two nights ago...

[Mike Dubost]

ORIGINAL: terje439

ORIGINAL: Mike Dubost

I looked on weatherbase.com to get some actual numbers, and I found the record low for the 72-year temperature record is 27 F (approximately -3 C). Average January low temperature is 46 F.

Not fair, we had -3 C two nights ago...

Yeah, the climate near San Francisco is very pleasant. It's one of the reasons real estate in the SF Bay Area is insanely expensive. If my sympathy means anything to you, you do have it.