By Eileen Clegg Press Democrat Staff Writer Kent Porter. A trip to the beach in the dead of winter is no picnic for fair weather types but, for the hearty and adventurous, this is the liveliest time of year on the coast. Birds are visiting, whales are migrating, waves can be at their highest and tides at their lowest, making for some of the best days of the year for surfing or tide-pooling or just walking along the beach and breathing in nature. What's special about it in comparison to summertime is there are a lot more birds, there are more dramatic skies and fierce waves that keep washing the beach. This is the time of year when the surf roars, Highway One is quiet, and the tracks on the beach are more likely to be avian than human.
Winter brings a climatological turnabout.
In the summertime, the coast is a natural air conditioner for inlanders, sometimes ten degrees cooler than in the Santa Rosa plain. But in the winter, temperatures tend to be a few degrees warmer at the beach than inland. There are those winter storms that turn the beaches into fearsome stretches of dark howling winds, and the fog does roll in. But the image of the coast as constantly socked-in by fog comes more from a summer than winter weather phenomenon. If any of this comes as news, consider that there's not too much incentive for coastal residents to volunteer information about their secret winter pleasures.