Weather extremes are much more frequent everywhere than in years past. Predictions based on historical data no longer seem valid. Whether the current trend is caused by human activities, or just natural fluctuations in the history of the planet (as some believe), it will likely continue for some time (even natural fluctuation has long periodicity). For example, places that were cold, and are getting colder, are likely to get colder still. There’s no reversion to the mean in the short term.
A list of fires in CA by year is on the 3rd page of the California State Hazard Mitigation report at https://www.caloes.ca.gov/HazardMitigationSite/Documents/011-2018%20SHMP_FINAL_Ch%208.pdf . According to this government report, the number of fires has been gradually decreasing since the first year they list stats in 1987. 2017 was anomaly to this trend of a fewer fires, although 2017 still had fewer fires than all available years in the 80s and a good portion of the 90s. However, the number of acres burned has been far more variable and may be increasing slightly. It is difficult to confirm the acres trend due to variable external events. For example, the largest number acres burned occurred during the drought of 2007-08. The more recent drought also had a corresponding increased number of acres burned, which distorts long term trend lines. In any case, the report does not suggest, “Nothing is like it was when we were in college, in terms of fires.”
There are fires in some areas of the state, particularly wooded ares. I regularly go hiking in a good variety of CA forest areas, and it’s not uncommon to see places that were burned by fires years ago within many of these forests. Some people can smell such fires dozens or even 100+ miles away. However, that does not mean smelling smoke is the norm. While many people in CA can site a particular fire (often from years ago) in which they smelled smoke or even saw ash, those are rare events that a person in college is not likely to experience.
Perhaps my experience was unusual this summer.
Since “CC is not a debate society”, I’ll let the stats go and just say fires, smog, June Gloom and SF’s fog are all weather things that would give me, personally, pause, about a region that is generally seen as desirable weather-wise. (Wait…also the lovely but unswimmably cold gulf-stream-free beaches).
IMO those things are just as valid as too hot, humid, cold, snowy, too much rain, not enough sun and so on as factors I’d consider but wouldn’t count as particularly important.
We’ve lived in the Bay Area for 4 years, and the Camp Fire was definitely above and beyond the norm in a huge way. And one person’s desirable weather is another person’s nightmare.
But if we’re extending the title to include everything Mother Nature throws at you, there’s nowhere in the US that’s really safe, is there? Snowstorms, intense humidity, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes etc? Where’s a totally safe-from-disaster and mild-weather state?
My daughters, one in NYC, one in northern California, think Wisconsin (their childhood home, where I continue to live) seems pretty safe, snow, cold, and all.
Hardly mild weather though, to get back to the original idea before natural disasters started being included.
https://www.channel3000.com/weather/winter-storm-life-threatening-wind-chills-possible-next-week-for-southern-wisconsin/989492020
Anyway, nearly Feb in New England and the last two evenings I was out to putter around and then give D1’s bf a ride home, just in a t-shirt (and pants, of course.) It’s really nice. Again, high blue skies during the day. 32 tomorrow, so back to the jacket.
You know, people were out jogging last week, when it was below 10. Not like fall, when the college boys are out running shirtless. We deal with things as they are. Always have weather to talk about. The secret is whenever it’s great, we embrace it.
I agree. It’s not mild weather. But it is unusual, and people can protect themselves by staying inside and, when going outside, dressing appropriately.
Just got from a 10K run this evening here on the SF Peninsula, where the weather is a perfect sunny and 68 degrees. No smoke. :D/
The fires in Butte County were the first time that I can ever remember where the SF Bay Area air was affected by smoke caused by fires.
Nope. My kid is used to Michigan winters.
I would love to be someplace where it doesn’t get really cold and doesn’t get really hot. But I can’t afford to live in the Bay area. And I’m guessing my daughter won’t be able to afford staying there after grad school.
Humans adjust to weather. It’s our natural instinct to survive.
With that said, my D wanted warm weather schools and S is looking that direction, but not as concerned about the cold.
My S runs cross country. With the hours and miles he puts in each week outside, you better believe weather was a factor! We are from the NE but he ending up at a school in the south. He decided he’d rather deal with high temps than low temps.
That makes sense. I know people who run through the winter in New England but I wouldn’t do it. The snow and ice are too hard to run on.
My child pretty much eliminated Mt Holyoke for that reason. There is a lot of walking on SLAC campuses (to every meal, every class). We were there for a freak sleety spring weekend, which had been sunny hours before in PA, and that made up her mind. I think it was a good choice for her.
When we visited McGill it was 3 degrees Fahrenheit and there was a foot of fresh snow turned slush turned frozen ice on the ground. Both of my kids fell in love with Montreal - S17 there now; S19 joining him. And I feel compelled to point out one of his highlights for the last two years is Igloofest - the world’s coldest music festival - which is held outdoors for several weekends in January.
yes but i told them it is only for four years. suck it up!
If kids are at the college, I don’t think weather matters all that much. It’s the travel to and from the college town that is cold and can be dangerous.
My childhood town (central Wisconsin) closed schools today as it is below 0 and very windy. They expect actual temps to be -30 this week, with a -50 wind chill. The university isn’t closed, just the public school system. In the 10 years I lived there and went to school, the public schools were closed about about 3-4 times in total, not per year, so for the school to close for 3-4 days this week is a big deal. Someone posted that the college has closed once in 25 years
My daughter just finished 4.5 years in Laramie Wyoming. The school never closed. Colorado State, just 45 miles south, closed several times during that time, as did CU.
Daughter is traveling to Florida this week and the plan was to go I-80 to I-70 to her boyfriend’s mother’s home in Indiana. I think I’ve convinced them to skip Indiana, to skip Atlanta (and the Super Bowl traffic) and drive south to I-10. It would just be such a miserable drive in the frigid cold this week.
Weather was definitely a factor both in my moving to So Cal from the east coast decades ago and did figure into my daughter’s choice of college.
Stanford’s sunny campus was way more inviting than either rainy New Haven or April weather in the 30s in Chicago. I shudder to think (no pun intended) how the current cold snap would go over.
Ha. I want to school in Fairbanks and bought a big, puffy down coat before I went. I never wore it. I just wore a plain, old winter coat that someone in the Midwest or New England might wear in winter. 40 years later, I still have both coats hanging in the closet.