Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/50

32 THE TOURIST'S CALIFORNIA Island. On the peaks which thrust upward from the centre of it, winter nights and mornings are frosty. Santa Barbara's days are sunny for two-thirds of the year. The average annual temperature is 60. In August it may reach 90, but even then one will need wraps when driving. Here, as elsewhere on the coast, sea mists and west winds cool the air in summer, and winter evenings are often cold. Monterey divides its seasons into two springs one spring during which rain falls and another spring when it is always dry, when one may plan weeks ahead for outings whose announcement need never bear the words, " weather permit- ting." San Francisco is on the same parallel as Lisbon and has many climatic peculiarities in common with it. May and November have the same tem- perature, 57 being the average. September is the warmest month, January the coldest. Be- tween the two there is but 11 variation in a nor- mal year, though on one March day in 1914 the mercury showed 96. When Atlantic coast ther- mometers register 90, those of San Francisco usually show the perfection of summer tempera- tures, 70. And yet few will agree that San Francisco has a perfect summer climate. Morn- ings are apt to be foggy afternoons unquali-