Temperatures in Half Moon Bay are perfect for wearing tank tops and shorts — with some zipcodes likely to leave you mopping your brow.
San Francisco has never been colder. Downtown temperatures broke record lows earlier this month, and citywide averages continue registering in the low-50s°F ; nightly drops into the low-40s°F are now something of an expected norm. We’re all paying Bay Area rent prices to see our breath condense in front of us … as if we were living in Seattle.
OK, Half Moon Bay. pic.twitter.com/2s5TYfoHaH
— NWS Bay Area 🌉 (@NWSBayArea) December 12, 2025
Relief from the cold doesn’t have an end in sight. (Meteorologists expect things to warm up around Christmas, but the Central Valley fog phenomenon, causing this unusually chilly weather, shows no sign of letting up.) But not everyone in the San Francisco Bay Area is doubling up light layers.
Residents in the small coastal town of El Granda were basking underneath clear skies and 80-degree highs on Thursday, December 11th.
The Bay Area chapter of the National Weather Service (NWS) shared a screenshot of daily highs recorded yesterday. Unsurprisingly, nearly every Bay Area zip code experienced highs somewhere in the 50s; a few inland, South Bay, and, ironically enough, mountainous zip codes had highs in the 60s°F; an exceptionally low 48°F temperature was measured near Milpitas. Amid the sea of chilly highs was an exceptional high of 80 degrees … that was documented near Half Moon Bay.
“OK, Half Moon Bay,” reads a post on X by NWS Bay Area, sharing the aforementioned screenshot. The mid- to high-70s exist as enormous black sheep. Moreover: The 80°F temperature was measured near El Granda is a true anomaly, besting the historical average by nearly 13 degrees and was just one degree shy of tying an all-time daily high record for the day.
The northern part of the Santa Cruz Mountain Range surrounding Half Moon Bay has a shielding effect from the icy Central Valley fog freezing most of the region. It’s unlikely these temperatures will repeat themselves soon — highs in various zipcodes will sit in the 60s°F throughout the weekend and into next week — but Half Moon Bay is proving to be a warm enclave to find some atmospheric respite.
