Contra Costa County CA Archives History - Books .....Climatography 1882
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Book Title: History Of Contra Costa County, California

   CLIMATOGRAPHY.—On such a subject as the climate of a portion of the State of
California, we deem it well to reproduce the mature thoughts of a scientist, as
given by Dr. J. R. Howard in the Contra Costa Gazette, in the year 1876, rather
than give our own ideas, which, at best, would be most imperfect, owing to the
shortness of a residence, comprising but one season, in the district. The
learned Doctor says:

   "The climate of the county has the relation to other parts of the State that
its geography and peculiarities of surface configuration would indicate. In
general, it is a medium between the warm, corn-producing valleys of Los Angeles
and San Bernardino and the potato and oat-producing valleys of Humboldt and
Trinity. Twice in twenty years we remember to have seen an inch of snow fall in
the valley. A dozen times in the same number of Winters we have seen old
Diablo's pate glittering in a fleecy mantle of white for a few hours—we think
never longer than forty-eight. Even then we have seen the sun shining warm upon
the exposed slopes, the grass and flowers blooming, the lambs and children at
play in the yards and fields, the larks and blue-birds singing from the trees
and fences as in mating-time. Again, at other times in Summer, we have seen the
thermometer climb to the uncomfortable height of one hundred and eight degrees
in the shade, in the valleys, and preserve for days—usually about three—around
that notch, receding, however, from the going down of the sun, till about
seventy-five degrees was indicated by bed-time, and ten or fifteen degrees less
before morning.

   "The division of the seasons into wet and dry is California's distinctive
peculiarity. There is nothing like it known in the older States, and scarcely
elsewhere; and the fact of the rainy season occurring in Winter in place of
Summer exercises a wonderful influence over its temperature and salubrity. Our
ocean winds of Summer and southeast winds of Winter antagonize, yet harmonize,
the seasons most perfectly. The northwest Summer winds, with coquettish squalls
and showers, play with other points of the compass for a few days, then settle
into steady purpose about the middle of April, and throughout the season until
November 1st, keep faith with all who trust dry weather prophecies; then,
slowly, as if exhausted, dry winds lull into a calm, often for fifteen or twenty
days, when from the opposite point of the compass begin those antagonizing
winds, laden with the moisture of the warm southeast, which, in passing over our
county on their way back to the ocean, meet with the conditions to precipitate
them in warm Winter rains in the various quantities that we find by measurement.
In this way our temperature is peculiarly influenced by the winds, as well as by
the amount of moisture carried upon the mountains and elevated valleys during
the prevalence of the northwest, fog-laden winds from the ocean, most of the
Summer months. For example, about June the strong northwest winds begin to come
in from the sea, heavily charged with a rolling spray, enveloping hill and dale
like a dense smoke all over the bay side of our county, obscuring the sun for
days at times, and bringing a shivering temperature with it, even in July and
August. These rolling fog-banks fall heavily against and on top of our hills and
elevated valleys, over the western part of the county, and through such passes
in the mountains as are in the line of direction they pour over and through into
the first series of valleys with a force that is often disagreeable, and
temperature that makes Winter clothing indispensable. The thermometer will
indicate about from fifty-five to sixty-five degrees during these fog-laden
winds, which prevail, more or less, for one-fourth of the time in Summer over
the western half of the county. At times the moisture accumulates on the bushes
upon hill-tops sufficient to fall and run in the roads.

   "The middle valleys, lying parallel to the coast have a higher temperature,
except just at or about some of the low divides in ranges of hills toward the
coast, where the fog-charged winds come in like water over a precipice. In these
valleys the fog from the passes eddies and falls, while over the crests of the
parallel hills may be seen and heard the roaring, rolling fog-banks, breaking
and losing the largest portion of their burden, while the higher and lighter
portions are broken up into fleecy fragments to pass on to the next highest
point in line, which, in our county, would be Diablo and its spurs.

   "From the peculiar configuration of surface the middle portion of the county
has a coast-wind brake in its western hills, sheltering it from fog and force of
the heavy winds, giving a modified Summer temperature under the fog-banks
without its disagreeable feature. The average range of the thermometer in Summer
for the middle valleys would be from seventy-five to eighty-five degrees, with
an occasional scorching spell of about three days. The Winter's temperature
varies from forty to seventy degrees, with an occasional fall to the freezing
point, and in rare instances four or five degrees below. Frosts occur during
about six weeks in the months of December and January. On the northern boundary,
along the water lines of bays and rivers, the coast winds blow unobstructed
through the Carquinez straits, and over the great eastern valley of San Joaquin
with a force and freshness that gives this part of the county a temperature
about ten degrees lower than the middle valleys, but from fifteen to twenty
degrees above the western part. This current carries but little fog beyond the
straits or opening of the middle valleys of the bay, and passes over the eastern
half or great San Joaquin valley hills dry and rarified by the reflected rays of
the sun, from a surface that has had the lightest rainfall of the county.

   Rainfall.—"The rainfall of the different parts of the county is also
peculiar—depending upon altitude, course of the wind, currents and timber, the
Winter temperature being considerably affected by the fall of rain in each of
the three divisions. Thus, over the western part, that is, the mountainous, the
rainfall is about twenty-three inches annual average; the middle valley about
nineteen; the eastern valley and north spurs of Diablo about fourteen; and each
having a relation in rainfall and temperature peculiar to itself. To condense in
a few words, the temperature and rainfall may be compared thus: The western half
of the county, taking the west line of the great central valleys as the
division, has about the same temperature and rainfall that San Francisco
has—being elevated, timbered and exposed to the same ocean influences; the
eastern hills and valleys have nearly the rainfall and temperature of the great
interior valleys of the State—Sacramento and San Joaquin; the middle valleys and
hills between Mount Diablo and spurs and west San Ramon hills is the medium in
rainfall and temperature that its situation would indicate.

   Salubrity.—"In a country like this whole State, with its peculiar surface,
seasons and situation, we should expect to find health and longevity the rule,
and such is the case—always excepting the windward side in Summer of the tide
deltas of the rivers and bays, which is a small exception in a great State like
this. With a situation lengthwise, parallel to the ocean; a sharp, shedding
water surface from abrupt mountains and sloping valleys; comparatively light
rainfall, the absence of heavy forests over the largest portion of the State,
and the very fortunate peculiarity of its rainy season occurring during the
Winter months; its steady northwest sea-winds of Summer, all distinguish it as
the sanitarium of all known lands, and statistical tables show our cities with a
less mortality in proportion than any others. Our county, holding that happy
mean of location and climate in general with its own peculiar local variety in
temperature and moisture, would naturally be supposed to follow the same rule of
health; it is so; there is no healthier county than Contra Costa in this State,
or any other 5 with the exception of some spots upon the leeward margin of the
overflowed land in the northeast corner, there is no malarial cause in the
county, no pestilential marshes, no decaying forests, no stagnant pools of
stinking water, simmering under a Summer's sun, to sorrow the land with sickness.

   "For an out-door life, to an active, vigorous constitution, the western half
of the county is the place to seek. Its open, pleasant Winter, and cool, moist,
bracing, fog-shaded Summers, just meet the needs of the toiling mass in field
and shop. In the central valleys locations are found that are sheltered by crest
and mountain peak from the harsh winds and fog of the west in Summer, and the
driving southeast gales and rain of Winter. Such places as Clayton, all the
upper portion of Ygnacio Valley, and a portion of San Ramon, are examples of
this particular excellence. The eastern portion, with a less rainfall, a dryer
soil, rapid drainage, a dry, bracing wind over it in Summer, and a sheltered
situation for Winter, would naturally have all the essentials to health.

   "This is so over the dry valleys and hills, but in this portion is the one
hundred and ten square miles of overflowed land of the county, and in some
seasons generate miasmatic fevers among those living on the wrong side of such
locations. But the suffering from such causes is mild compared with that
produced in other climates, where summer rains and a high temperature encourage
the growth of vegetation, where the water stands and dries, and the winds blow
from no certain quarter, and scarcely from any, and a stench arises from ponds
and fens suggestive of drugs and doctors, pills and bills. In a twenty years
experience in the middle and eastern portion of the county we have seen about
three years when a mild typhoid type of fever prevailed to a considerable extent
in the Summer and Fall, but with a very small percentage of mortality. To
persons predisposed to throat and chest weaknesses, all the windy portions are
unfavorable—but there are the sheltered dells and fringed rifts of old Diablo
that will give them a home for their needs, under the shade of the evergreen oak
and fragrant buckeye. To those needing a warm, dry climate, the San Joaquin
Valley portion of the county is at hand, with its mineral waters, boiling
springs and rarefied atmosphere.

   "Contagious diseases introduced into our county refuse to spread. We have
known cases of small-pox, measles, scarlet-fever, etc., brought to the county
from elsewhere, that have not cast their dreaded shadow over a second threshold.
We never saw an epidemic contagion in the county. Children born in this county
are more vigorous, better developed physically, and freer from the pests of
vermin, scabies, an eruption of childhood, than in any other part of the
world—we say this without fear of successful contradiction. With such a start in
childhood, in a favorable location of the earth's surface, there must grow up a
healthy, contented, intelligent manhood about the base of the old central
mountain that will keep us in the van of progress."

   General Remarks.—In concluding our subject of the climatography of Contra
Costa County, let us quote from Lieutenant Maury, that eminent scientist whose
fame is world-wide. He says: "The calm and trade-wind regions or belts move up
and down the earth, annually, in latitude nearly a thousand miles. In July and
August the zone of equatorial calms is found between seven degrees north and
twelve degrees north; sometimes higher; in March and April, between latitude
five degrees south and two degrees north. With this fact, and these points of
view before us, it is easy to perceive why it is that we have a rainy season in
Oregon, a rainy season and a dry season in California, another at Panama, two at
Bogota, none in Peru, and one in Chili. In Oregon it rains every month, but
about five times more in the Winter than in the Summer months. The Winter there
is the Summer of the southern hemisphere, when this steam-engine is working with
the greatest pressure. The vapor that is taken by the southeast trades is borne
along over the region of northeast trades to latitude thirty-five or forty
degrees north, where it descends and appears on the surface with the southeast
winds of those latitudes. Driving upon the high lands of the continent, this
vapor is condensed and precipitated, during this part of the year, almost in
constant showers, and to the depth of about thirty inches in three months. In
the Winter the calm belt of Cancer approaches the equator. This whole system of
zones, viz: of trades, calms and westerly winds, follows the sun; and they of
our hemisphere are nearer the equator in the Winter and Spring months than at
any other season. The southeast winds commence at this season to prevail as far
down as the lower part of California. In Winter and Spring the land in
California is cooler than the sea air, and is quite cold enough to extract
moisture from it. But in Summer and Autumn the land is warmer, and cannot
condense the vapors of water held by the air. So the same cause which made it
rain in Oregon makes it rain in California. As the sun returns to the north, he
brings the calm belt of Cancer and the northeast trades along with him; and now,
at places where, six months before, the southwest winds were the prevailing
winds, the northeast trades are found to blow. This is the case in the latitude
of California. The prevailing winds, then, instead of going from a warmer to a
cooler climate, as before, are going the opposite way. Consequently, if under
these circumstances they have the moisture in them to make rains of, they cannot
precipitate it. Proof, if proof were wanting, that the prevailing winds in the
latitude of California are from the westward, is obvious to all who cross the
Rocky Mountains or ascend the Sierra Madre."

   It will thus be seen that the wind, which has so general an influence upon
our climate, conies directly from the Pacific Ocean, forces its way through the
Golden Gate, and, striking the Contra Costa hills, is wafted into the many
delightful valleys of the conterminous counties.



Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

HISTORY OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTY,
CALIFORNIA,
INCLUDING ITS GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY, TOPOGRAPHY, CLIMATOGRAPHY AND DESCRIPTION;
TOGETHER WITH A RECORD OF THE MEXICAN GRANTS; THE BEAR FLAG WAR; THE MOUNT
DIABLO COAL FIELDS; THE EARLY HISTORY AND SETTLEMENT, COMPILED FROM THE MOST
AUTHENTIC SOURCES; THE NAMES OF ORIGINAL SPANISH AND MEXICAN PIONEERS; FULL
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE COUNTY; SEPARATE HISTORY OF EACH TOWNSHIP, SHOWING
THE ADVANCE IN POPULATION AND AGRICULTURE;
ALSO,
Incidents of Pioneer Life; and Biographical Sketches
OF EARLY AND PROMINENT SETTLERS AND REPRESENTATIVE MEN;
AMD OF ITS TOWNS, VILLAGES, CHURCHES, SECRET SOCIETIES, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED.
SAN FRANCISCO: W. A. SLOCTUM & CO., PUBLISHERS
1882.


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