Fresno-Tulare-Kern County CA Archives History - Books .....California's Climate 1892
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Book Title: Memorial And Biographical History Of The Counties Of Fresno, Tulare, And Kern, California

CALIFORNIA'S CLIMATE.

  " The glorious climate of California" has, it is true, been a hackneyed
subject; yet it is one which we have always with us and which from the time of
the first explorers who committed their discoveries as well as ideas to writing
has been one of the most potent charms of the Pacific coast. The climatic
peculiarities of California are the first of the many attractions which are
offered to the attention of the tourist, and there are so many anomalies and
apparent contradictions, so many reversals of all preconceived ideas and former
experience, that this is always a fruitful subject for discussion and
investigation. The climate of California differs widely from that of any other
portion of the United States, and in many features from that of any other part
of the world. These points of variation apply to every climatic feature that can
be suggested, and in every detail the contrast results advantageously for this
highly favored region.

  Contrast these climatic conditions with those on the Eastern coast, where the
rigors of winter scarcely lose their grip, when the cyclones and thunder-storms
begin their work of destruction, and thousands fall from sunstroke. The majority
of Calitbrnians are familiar with climatic conditions on the first day of
January east of the Rocky mountains. There, north of the Gulf States the
principal industry January first is to battle against the piercing cold winds
and guard against freezing, while in California the air is balmy, the sky blue,
and the earth is clothed in her spring-like garments. The farmer is busy plowing
his fields, vegetables are being planted and harvested everywhere, the orange
trees are golden with their luscious fruits, the pale green foliage of the olive
is intermingled with the rich purple of its thickly clustered fruit'; flower
gardens are abloom with roses and geraniums, fuchias and heliotropes; children
are rolling on the grassy sward, and existence out doors is as enjoyable as
during an Eastern May. When the tourist from the Eastern States crosses the
Sierra Nevada, his attention is directed to the marvelous transformation that
occurs.

  The important fact should be borne in mind, -and one that is perhaps hardest
of all to be understood,-that so far as California is concerned latitude cuts
almost no figure whatever in climatic changes or differences. The climate of San
Diego in the south is practically that of Crescent City on the north; there is
little variation of temperature, winter or summer, between the two ends of the
great interior valley, although one extreme boundary is nearly 500 miles south
of the other. Coast, interior, foothill or mountain, the same law applies, and
demonstrations will be given in figures compiled with the greatest care by
trained observers.

  Broadly speaking, the year in California is divided into but two seasons.
There are none of the sharp changes that form so disagreeable a feature of the
climate in other parts of the world. On the contrary the two seasons shade into
each other so gradually that the change is almost imperceptible. The dry season
is frequently prolonged until the so-called winter months are half gone, while
the wet season sometimes reaches well into the summer months. The popular idea
of the wet and the dry season, as held by those who have had no experience in
such matters, is that during the one "the rain it raineth every day," while
during the other there is nothing but a cloudless sky from one month's end to
the other. Nothing could be further from the truth, however.

  With an average rainfall varying from ten inches in the far south to
thirty-six inches in the extreme north, it will appear evident to the thinking
mind that a long continued down-pour is out of the question. Under ordinary
conditions, a half dozen storms of three or four days' duration each, is all
that California has during a year. There are some seasons, as in all other
localities, when there are storms of longer duration, and a much greater
precipitation, but the figures given are an average for a long series of years.
"The rainy season" (better called the rain season) is not unpleasant by any
means. On the contrary it is considered by many the most enjoyable portion of
the year. The first storm of any importance lays the dust, cleanses the
atmosphere, washes the foliage of the numerous evergreen trees of every variety
and causes the earth to be covered with a blanket of grass and blossoms of a
thousand varying hues. The air is balmy and invigorating, and the most beautiful
day in the late spring of the Atlantic coast, rare as it is, is not more
enchanting or enjoyable than the greater portion of California's "rainy season."

  Let us briefly inquire into the causes which produce such a wonderful climate
in California, and which is little understood, and in fact scarcely thought of,
by the average individual. Perhaps the clearest statement as is possible of the
causes which produce the unique climate enjoyed on the Pacific coast of North
America is that furnished in an interesting paper prepared by a well known
medical writer of Oakland, Dr. J. B. Trembley, from which we quote:

  "The western coasts of Europe and North America are examples of similar
climate, modified by the same corresponding causes,-ocean and air currents.
Without entering into an extended inquiry over the various portions of the world
in comparing climatic factors, the knowledge, positive and theoretical, of the
climatic conditions that are imposed upon the western slope of the Pacific coast
from Alaska toward the south, and the causes so far as observed, are all that
will interest the general reader. The same general causes that modify the
climate of Alaska, British Columbia, Oregon and California, extending into
Mexico, have long been known to meteorologists and those who have made physical
geography a study. But the many local modifying influences that these great
currents of water and air meet with as they impinge upon the northwestern coast
of the continent, by high mountain ranges, inland valleys and solar heat, give
as various climates as the topography of the country is different where their
influence is felt.

  "The ocean current that modifies the climate of the Pacific coast is a portion
of the great equatorial current, which is deflected northerly and easterly when
it meets the eastern coast of Asia. This current, a portion of the warm
equatorial current, as it flows toward the northwest, washing the eastern shores
of China and Japan, takes the name of the Japan current, or Kuro Sivo. At or
near latitude 50 degrees and longitude 170 degrees, it divides. One portion,
continuing northerly, passes through Behring strait; the other, south of the
Aleutian islands, assumes the name of the Aleutian current. It advances eastward
until it strikes the northwest coast of North America, then turning acutely to
the southeast, flowing along the western shore, until what is left is drawn into
the great equatorial current at or near the Tropic of Cancer, again to make the
current of nearly a quarter of the hemisphere. Various elements of this great
current, when taken into consideration, that go to make it one of the physical
constituents in the formation of climate, seems as yet but partially understood.
Its depth, width, velocity and temperature have not been investigated as have
some of the currents of the Atlantic ocean.

  "Professor Davidson of San Francisco seems to have been almost the only one
who has given this subject any attention, with the exception of some few casual
observers, who have here and there made memoranda for their own curiosity. The
professor starts with a maximum temperature of the Japan current of 88 degrees
Fahrenheit; at Alaska, 50.06 degrees; six to eight hundred miles west from San
Francisco, 60.33 degrees; 100 miles west, 55.05 degrees. At the tidal station at
Fort Point the mean temperature for eight years was 55.66 degrees, that of the
air being 54.97 degrees. The temperature of the ocean 900 miles west of San
Francisco for one year was 60.52 degrees as found by the ocean steamers going
and coming from Yokohama to San Francisco.

  "This shows a difference of temperature beween the water of the ocean current
100 miles to the west and at the tidal station on shore to be 61 degrees less
here; at 600 to 800 miles, 4.67 degrees greater; at 900 miles, 4.86 degrees
greater or warmer. The great ocean current in flowing from its origin to the
coast of California has parted with 32.34 degrees of heat; or, in other words,
has lost, from the average temperature of the equatorial waters (78 degrees),
22.34 degrees, and leaves an average surface ocean temperature, to the distance
of 900 miles west of California, of 57.89 degrees. The temperature of the air
along the coast, and the water, hardly ever rises more than two or three
degrees, and the above figures show only 2.92 degrees for the average difference
in temperature of the water and air over a large area of the ocean contiguous to
the Pacific coast, and give an explanation of the low temperature at the base of
the atmospherical column that rests on the ocean's water. Also the great freedom
from rain during the summer months, when the westerly winds overcast, and fogs
prevail.

  "The great aerial current that moves with the ocean stream, is the counter
trade wind of the northern hemisphere, and seems to determine the character of
the climate of California almost wholly. As it strikes the Pacific coast, it is
always the high current, and flowing from a westerly direction changing but very
little the point of the compass at the same date of time in each year. It
oscillates from the south of west at one portion of the year to the north of
west at another, moving from north to south with the declination of the sun, and
then back again. During the summer season it blows nearly from the west, and in
the winter being acted on by the polar winds, is given a more northwesterly
direction.

  "Physical geography so well describes the great systems of atmospherical
currents that it is superfluous to enter into a description of all the winds and
the laws that produce them. Owing to solar heat and the diurnal motion of the
earth three distinct belts or systems of winds are produced,-easterly winds in
the tropical zone, westerly winds in the temperate zone and northerly or
northwesterly in the higher latitudes. These zones of wind move bodily to and
fro with the vertical rays of the sun, toward the north in summer and toward the
south in winter. On the movement of these zones of water and air rest the causes
of the wet and dry seasons over the great area of country bordering on the
western coast of the United States.

  "The causes of the principal climatic phenomena of California having thus been
set forth at length, it remains to give some attention to certain peculiarities
in other directions which are noteworthy. One of these is the periodical
prevalence of what is known as 'northers,' and which are one of the most
unpleasant climatic features known on the Pacific coast, though, as will be
shown, possessing many compensating advantages. All parts of California, but
more especially the vast interior valleys, are periodically subjected to winds
from the north, which at times are of great violence and become decidedly
uncomfortable. These wind-storms are caused by the intense heat which prevails
in these valleys, by which the air is rarefied, ascends, and thus creates a
vacuum. The cool air from the north at once rushes in to restore the
equilibrium, while the heat in the soil creeps northward until the whole surface
of the valley becomes heated, thus creating a practical vacuum 450 miles long,
with an average width of forty-five miles. Then from the north the cold air
rushes in in increasing volume, and the norther thus created sweeps down the
valley. Opposite the Golden Gate the cool air is drawn in from the bay and
ocean, and again the norther rushes down the valley. .Reaching the lower end it
leaps the mountain barrier and traverses the desert. Here it gathers up vast
quantities of sand and dust of an almost impalpable character, and with the
accumulated heat pours over the mountains again into the lower valleys. Warning
is always given to the people of that section of the approach of a norther, or
sandstorm, by a peculiar brazen tinge of the atmosphere for a day or more
beforehand, caused by the quantities of dust held in suspension. The north wind
produces violent electrical disturbances, the exact cause of which is hardly
known, though the effects are familiar to all. All animal life suffer alike.
There seems to be a general lowering of vitality, headache is prevalent and a
lassitude and indisposition to exertion is common. When the norther is of an
unusually high temperature vegetation of all kinds suffers. Fruit has been known
to be actually roasted and fall from the tree, while grain and grass wither and
dry up. Damage, however, only takes place when the wind is exceptionally high,
and of long continuance.

  "On the other hand the unpleasant features of these winds are well balanced by
their beneficial effects in more than one direction. With= out them the climate
of the interior valleys would be humid, moist and oppressively tropical.
Vegetation would be rapid and the soil would be quickly covered with an
excessive and unhealthy growth. The north wind by its desiccatory power destroys
the germs of disease caused by vegetable decay and prevents malaria and other
sickness. Fevers disappear before its coming, and invalids suffering from
various diseases find themselves better. The fungi that attack vegetable growth
where there is a superabundance of moisture are almost unknown where the
northers occasionally prevail, and in a word the unpleasent momentary effects of
the high wind are more than counterbalanced by the lasting benefits conferred by
it.

  "There is still another peculiarity connected with California climate which is
exceedingly difficult to understand, and the causes of which are even yet not
fully demonstrated. The fact that the earliest fruits come from the central and
northern part of the State is one of those apparent anomalies which are
difficult of comprehension to the stranger. It seems like a reversal of the laws
of nature to find vegetation of any kind maturing at an earlier date in the
north than in the south. Yet such is an indisputable fact, remarkable though it
seems. There are two well-defined and widely separated 'early-fruit regions' in
the State, and they are so far apart that it must be evident that different
causes produce the same result. In Solano County, a short distance north of San
Francisco, is the Vaca valley, with its tributaries, or neighbors, Pleasant and
Capay valleys. In these localities every variety of deciduous fruit ripens long
before it does at points 500 miles further south. Cherries, apricots, peaches,
plums, grapes, etc., are in readiness for market here several weeks in advance
of any locality to the south. A similar singular state of facts is found in the
foothills of Placer County and contiguous localities, where fruits ripen
practically at the same time as in the Solano County valleys mentioned.
Sometimes there is a difference of a day or two between these localities. but
for years the earliest fruits have been produced there, maturity being attained
so nearly at the same time that both are practically alike. The explanation of
this early maturing lies unquestionably in the existence of some phenomena that
cause the nights of early spring to be uniformly warmer in these early fruit
districts than elsewhere.

  "The days certainly are no warmer, as is shown by the records of
thermometrical observation. But that the nights are warmer and vegetation is
thus assisted is a fact, whatever the natural cause may be. There is a variety
of explanation for this singular state of facts, such as the sheltered character
of the localities where the early fruits mature, etc., but there are many other
spots which apparently are fully as well protected, but without the faculty of
hastening early maturity. Whatever may bo the exact cause, however, the
remarkable fact remains that the earliest fruit region is found north of the
central line of the State. Hundreds, yea, thousands of pages could be written of
this wonderful State, and yet the half would not be told; its undeveloped
resources are beyond conception, and are just now beginning to attract
attention. Twenty-five years hence this Golden State will be the Empire State of
the Union, as it is verily an Empire within itself."


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Memorial and Biographical History
OF THE COUNTIES OF
Fresno, Tulare, and Kern, California

Illustrated
Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast from the
Earliest Period of its Occupancy to the Present Time, together with Glimpses of
its Prospective Future: with Profuse Illustrations of its Beautiful Scenery,
Full-page Portraits of Some of its most Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of
Many of its Pioneers, and also of Prominent Citizens of to-day.

"A people that take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will
never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote
descendants." -Macaulay.

CHICAGO:
The Lewis Publishing Company.
Undated, but OCLC lists a publication date of 1892

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