Living with Karl the Fog & Navigating San Francisco’s Microclimates
San Francisco is known for its fog, so much so that it has its own name: Meet Karl the Fog. Yes, he has his own Instagram account and a very loyal following!
San Francisco’s climate is characterized by mild wet winters and cool foggy summers. It doesn’t really snow
Here are a few things you need to know about the weather in San Francisco:
San Francisco has so many microclimates.
San Francisco is uniquely positioned in that it’s a peninsula with the Pacific Ocean on one side and the bay on the other. So with all of that water and wind, the weather can change quickly and drastically. Even throughout the course of a day, you can go from foggy, chilly, and dark, to sunny and warm.
The foggiest parts of San Francisco are near the ocean.
Outer Sunset and Richmond can get pretty foggy. As you head east, the topography changes and you start to see really big hills. The hills stop the fog from fully moving across the city, and it kind of gets stuck. Of course, sometimes it comes over the hill and reaches the center of the city, but the fog has to make it over quite a few hills to do that.
Neighborhoods in east San Francisco like Mission Bay, Potrero Hill, and Dogpatch have much less fog than neighborhoods on the west side of the city.
Summer is the coldest season in San Francisco (which is the opposite of everywhere else).
Don’t plan on visiting in August if you are hoping to have gorgeous weather like you would in Seattle! You’ll be surprised by a very cold month, lovingly called “Fogust”. SF really shows off in April, and May, September and October. The spring and fall seasons are when the city is warmest. But don’t worry, if you find yourself in San Francisco during the summer and are craving the sun, you only need to drive about 30 minutes in any direction outside of the city before you’ll find sun again.
If it’s raining in San Francisco, it’s probably flooding the streets.
SF gets a lot less rain than a place like Seattle, where I am originally from, but because the city is much more dense, there’s less room for the water to soak into the ground. So if you’re at the bottom of a hill, watch out, because there might be a waterfall headed your way.
If you’re out and about in SF, make sure you have layers!
