The herald., 1897-07-04
: The BREEZES OF
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

tne MOST regular IN the world, and there
is probably no place where they so sell
dom overstep the bounds of propriety
The seabreeze of summer. it's time of
rising and its strength may be predicted
by child, while the winds that bring
the rains of winter are almost as mild
though not so easy to foretell.
TO suspect where the seabreeze comes
from ones needs but to camp a few nights
in one of the mountain passes that lie
between the coast country and the great
dry plains on the east that we call
deserts. You will quickly discover that
the movement of the air from the east
begins at almost the same time that
it does on the coast, varying little ac-
cording to locality. If it were a wind
born of the sea it would take hours to
reach these far interior passes, for its
speed is rarely over twelve miles an
hour and the friction of the hills over
which it has to pass would leave little
or none of this velocity by the time it
went fifty miles. Nor would the move
ment of air driven along ahead of it
have much force for the same reason.
Just as timber cuts to almost nothing
the strong breeze of the prairie, SO the
tumbling lines Of hills would reduce
this if it were sent from the sea.
This leads you to suspect that 1t is
drawn from the sea instead of sent from
it, and when at nightfall you perhaps
find breeze coming the other way
from the desert-as you will in some of
the passes, you feel more certain that
the action of the heated air on the
desert has something to do with 1t. If
you doubt go to the highest point of the
4 range on a clear day and look upon the
mighty basins Of grey and brown desc
lation that reach out until lost in
shimmering haze, toward the Colorado
on the one hand and the Sierra Nevada
on the other. A stupendous volume of
air of intense dryness must rise every
day from these vast basins under the
heat of the sun. This will naturally
flow over upon any colder sections and,
as Arizona, Sonora and even the big
plains of Nevada and Utah, are pretty
hot at the same time, it is not likely to
overflow to any extent there, especially
upon Arizona The Pacific coast is far
cooler than any other portion upon
which it cam f1ow
This is kept cool by the current in the
ocean which comes from the north and
has flow of about two miles an hour.
This follows the coast very closely and
goes much farther down than most peo-
pie imagine. At San Quintin. ITO miles
below San Diego, it is so near the shore
that for some twenty miles the beach
Is lined with driftwood from the far
north In most places four-horse wag-
on may be loaded with good firewood
in little more than the length of the
outfit. The fog fingers closer along
the shore there than at any other point
on the southern coast, and during near
ly week that I once spent there tile
thermometer was daily about six de-
grees lower than I found it had been
at San Diego during my absence. This
Is the same current that makes San
Francisco so cold in summer, and in
Southern California it is just about
far enough out at sea to make the tenn
perature about right In other words
our Gulf Stream is from the north in
stead of the south-a little difference
that readily explains the GOODNESS of our
summers along the coast, that eastern
people have such trouble to understand.
On the Atlantic on hot day it is about
as hot fifty yards from the shore as 1t
is at fifty miles. 1t is quite natural for
them to suppose that it must be the
same where the winters are SO mild.
lie IhSlHS VI tlllS dlI lTOIIl tue UeSeTls
creates suction, and to supply it, air
naturally goes from the coolest quarter
and not from the hottest Consequently
the suction is felt at about the edge of
the basin, in the mountain passes at
about the same time it is felt along the
coast, though the direction, strength
and time of being felt in all winds de-
pend much On the resistance of can
yons, timber, hills and general rough
ness Of the country over which they
travel.
Flowing over toward the coast this
over-current cools off, descends and
comes in again like an undertow, ming
ling with the air from the ocean. The
farther inland it comes the more the dry
part of it predominates and mingles, with
the part fresh from the surface of the
water. 1t also expands with the sur
and loses relative humidity until in a
few miles from the coast all traces of
the ocean are lost except the tempera-
ture, which keeps the land cool for many
miles. By the time it has gone inland
far enough to become quite warm it has
then become SO dry that, with it's
strength little, if any, abated, it removes
perSpration about as fast as it can
form if one is not working hard, and
makes the hottest day of the interior
quite comfortable for one who has moth
ing to do but keep COOL
The whole thing is quickly seen On
those few days in summer when clouds
sometimes cover the whole of the des.
erts. Then we quickly miss the breeze
and complain of its being sultry. They
are the worst days of the year, and for
tunately so rare that one may be here
two or three years without noting one
The falling off of this breeze in au-
tumn, when so many days on the deserts
are about as hot as ever, is probabyl due
to the cooling of Arizona and the country
to the north of it, The elevation of a
vast belt there is so great that the land
cools off early in the fall, and long be-
fore winter sets in the air is coooler than
on the Pacific slope.
The camper quickly discovers the
reversal of this breeze at night, when
the descending air upon the desert caus-
es flow over the passes toward the
west. Both of these effects are felt far
down in lower California and in South
erp Oregon. In all cases the sea breeze
is assisted by the rising of air between
the mountains and the coast. But in
Lower California as far down oS r