A lot of winters. Very little spring. Always that hella hot week.
Us San Franciscans are accustomed to living in a temperate oasis. Our wardrobes oscillate between two modes: days where the fog lingers for longer, requiring a light second layer of clothing… and those days when the city’s atmospheric haze dissolves by noon, permitting the sun to warm Dolores Park to the mid-70s.
It’s a hard life, no doubt. (Yes, reader: This was typed with a heaping dollop of sarcasm [which was heaved from an individual who grew up sweating through summers in Dallas, Texas].)
Fogust is a thing. Our occasionally, usually brief heat waves are things. Glorious blue days sat atop Francisco Park are things, too. Chilly sea breezes causing your skin to erupt with goosebumps are also a thing.
SF seasons in 2022:
– Winter
– Spring
– Winter
– That one week it was 96 degrees
– Winter— karl the fog (@KarlTheFog) October 13, 2022
And all these things were perfectly encapsulated by Karl The Fog when he tweeted his seasonal calendar for 2022 as the year comes winding down.
“- Winter
– Spring
– Winter
– That one week it was 96 degrees
– Winter”
Accurate. All facts; no lies. No notes. Though… it’s likely we’ll see more of those 96-degree weeks in the future.
Since the 1950s, Todd Dawson, a professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley who looked at historical fog records from coastal stations and airports, found a 33% reduction in fog frequency since the early 20th century.
SF’s famous fog also returns to San Francisco in shorter intervals; the region’s fog lingers about three hours less per day than it did in the 1950s; “Fogseason,” which generally runs from June through August, has also become increasingly short, especially since the 2000s.
All this makes us think we should appreciate this month’s unusually dense fog coverage more — which, per the San Francisco Chronicle, is the result of a “bizarre concoction of October weather” that’s seen dry ocean winds, cold air, and humid inland conditions.
Let’s all do our part to help Karl The Fog Keep his thickness… because it’s very much in, after all.
Feature Image: Courtesy of Twitter via @KarlTheFog
