How will Vancouver improve its weather?
California has a powerful draw...
California has a powerful draw...
Between May and October, basically half of the year, you'll have very comfortable T-shirt weather, and blue skies I'd say 70% of the time!
Between December and March it's gloomy, but you'll have awesome snow in the mountains, just 30 min from downtown :) from our office we can see the slopes. Just went skiing with the team 2 months ago.
Vancouver is one of the few cities you can ski in the morning and lie on the beach in the afternoon, grilling BBQ and play beach volleyball.
Life's not that bad! I've been here 5 years :)
BTW, if anyone is in town for the YC interviews, I'd love to show you a good time!
Vancouver gets 1900 hours of sunlight a year. That's not a lot. Compare to Seattle (which is considered gloomy) at 2170 hours and SF at 3000 hours.
March or April. We've had an exceptionally harsh winter this year (snow on the ground in Vancouver for weeks on end -- happens about once a decade) but usually around now people are admiring the cherry blossoms on their way to the beach.
Whistler/Blackcomb has a perfectly skiable alpine through to the end of April, and you can ski past that if you want (but I wouldn't personally recommend it).
These are exactly the temperatures tons of people in this thread are saying is cold when referring to San Francisco. They actually correspond with March in SF.
I visited SF for the first time in December and at first I didn't realize why people were complaining about the cold when it was rather nice weather outside (I'm from 60 degrees north) and the weather was in the 60-70 Farenheit range (20 celsius) which I consider to be nice and temperate climate.
But after a week it hit me. It's cold as hell indoors! I have warmer in my house now than I had in my hotel room or office and it's snow and ice outside.
Everybody's perspective is different...
Sure, further from the equator makes your days shorter in the winter, but they're longer during the summer. It's awash.
If the gloominess happened during long days, you'd really see a drop in mean sunshine hours.
Are you talking about sunlight or sunshine? I think these are different. The city where I live gets apparently between 1500 and 1800 hours of sunshine, is a bit South of Vancouver (but in Europe) and not particularly known for not being sunny. So the amount of sunshine could actually increase for immigrants, not coming from California.
Vancouver does get a lot of concentrated rain, but summers are sunnier than most cities in North America. 90% of that 1900 hours is between June and September.
I lived there for four years and I had a very tough time with the lack of sun. It can be very oppressive. Vancouver has a lot of things going for it (as you mentioned) but I think it's unfair to gloss over the overcast weather.
Vancouver: 160+ rainy days per year
San Francisco: ~50-60 would be typical (with 250+ sunny days per year). It had 66 rainy days last year for example. And just 42 in 2013.
Vancouver - 1835
London - 1460
Tallinn - 1753
Amsterdam - 1568
Stockholm - 1973
San Francisco - 3037
Honestly it's not that bad.
This map[1] might be of interest.
My family is from Victoria/Vancoucer and likes it cooler to enjoy active outdoor activities like running, biking and hiking. For this SF and Oakland weather is wonderful.
I also work a few blocks from the ferry building and wear shorts near year round, though that isn't saying much spending all my time in a temperature controlled office.
Climb, ski, bike, dive, kayak, hike. Top vacation destination activities available every weekend.
Oh, and burning man. That might not be everyone's thing, but its culture permeates throughout the bay.
I lived in Seattle for a year, and I got depressed from the weather. My doctor handed me a huge bottle of Vitamin D to take, saying most of her patients that lived there are deficient.
I couldn't handle it, so I moved back to sunny California, and immediately, my happiness levels returned back to normal again. Humans rely on the light to regulate their biorhythms, and Seattle/Vancouver are so far up north that in December, the sun rises at 10 AM, and it starts getting dark at around 3 PM.
For what it's worth, I grew up on the East Coast in Pittsburgh, PA with its notoriously bad weather, and I could cope with the variety of having four distinct seasons, including real winters with snowfall, much better than Seattle/Vancouver's monolithic climate (excluding the short summer that gives you two months of what SF weather is like every day).
As soon as I got back and walked right into the sunny blue skies outside of SFO, my mood perked up almost instantly. The difference was incredible!
That's a bit of an exaggeration. Even on the shortest day of the year in Vancouver, the sun rises at shortly after 8am and sets just after 4pm, which is a full 3 hours more of sunlight than you're giving it credit for.
I came in to work at 10 AM every day, and that's when it would start getting light outside (9 AM, still dark out).
Then, I struck a deal with my boss to work later and run my daily 5 kilometers midday at 2:00-2:30 PM instead of after work because by 3 PM, it would be too dark outside to feel safe from cars while exercising.
You know, I don't think I ever consciously had that thought, but since you mentioned it - I think I wholeheartedly agree with the statement.
You're not really an outlier, I learned that I feel the same way after living in SF for a while. It's just that it doesn't occur to many people because many people don't live in two such radically different climates.
I do miss the snow, but that's what Tahoe is for.
I would never describe the summers as "hellish" nor the winters as "ball-shriveling". I thoroughly enjoy the tremendous variety through all the seasons. I would say there isn't "1 week of pleasant weather", but rather, a year of tremendously varying, enjoyable weather.
But, of course, that's sort of the point - to each their own.
Also, not everyone hates wearing a jacket everyday...