Prepare for the weather during your California campus visits

College Search & Lists
1

I just wanted to relay my experience about being prepared for the weather conditions of campuses, wherever you plan to visit this Spring.

PSA: I am fortunate that I live in Southern California which is a location where there are a LOT of universities, but where the weather conditions can change within an hour.

That being said, please remember that we do have temperate weather, but we are not a tropical location. Please do not dress for tropical weather unless you know for sure that we are having a heat wave.

On Wednesday, my husband and I were at the San Diego Zoo. Most of the locals were wearing hoodies or jackets and long pants because the weather was in the low 60’s for most of the day. Add the ocean breezes, and it got cold and cloudy at 2 pm.

Given that California prices are already high, spending an extra $80-$100 on a tacky, low quality hoodie because you are wearing a halter top, shorts and sandals isn’t my idea of being prepared. Lots of the young men were in skimpy T-shirts, shorts and sandals. You could tell that they were cold.

The Zoo and other tourist areas make great money, in the Spring, because they sell a lot of jackets or hoodies to visitors who assume tropical weather and arrive unprepared.

Yesterday, I was driving in the vicinity of SDSU. It was hailing and all traffic was stopped. I had left my home ½ hour earlier in bright sun and experienced the hailstorm less than 1 hour later.

Learn from the best of the Midwest and East Coast, those folks know how to layer. If the weather gets warmer on your campus visits, strip off the layers.

If you visit the Bay Area, they get chilly there. They are definitely nowhere near being tropical.

Pack light, but prepare for the weather. You’ll be traipsing all over the campuses outdoors. We don’t have the tunnel systems here.

3 Likes
2

Perhaps they are just hardy New Englanders. Some boys/men wear shorts here year round. Even in negative temps. I wasn’t even sure my BIL owned a pair of long pants until he wore them to a wedding.

2 Likes
3

Yes! When you think of “sunny California” that is southern California. That is not the Bay Area. We are foggy, sometimes warm, often on the cooler side. The key to the Bay Area is LAYERS. Have a sweater or jacket for chilly morning and evenings, but a lighter shirt underneath for the warmer temperatures during the day.

Edited to add: This year has been very rainy, not sure if the rain is over or not, so check the forecast and consider packing a rain coat or umbrella. Also the past few years, we’ll get these unexpected weirdly hot days. So bring a t-shirt in case you hit a heat wave. It’s been less and less predictable for the past few years.

1 Like
4

Yep, we haven’t had that label for the past four months. We’ve been rainy and cold and flooded.
The clouds have been really badly unpredictable this past week. Thunderstorms, lightning and hail yesterday.

5

Yeah well you could tell they were cold, and, you could hear their comments like: “we didn’t think it was this cold down here.”

6

We’ve had this, too, although today is like early summer. Today we are “sunny California,” but that is usual for us. Our weather is usually on the cooler side until September and then it gets hot for a week or two. But for the past few years, as I said, we’ve been getting these weird heat waves at seemingly random times which are brutal for us. Many people here (including us!) don’t have air conditioning - that’s how unusual real heat is here. Or was. But we have definitely had to break out the fans more often recently. Welcome to the climate apocalypse.

7

My daughter was complaining so much yesterday about how hot it was here in Berkeley. The temperature at that time was 66F. :wink: Pretty much any time it goes over 60, Mom it’s so hot OMG why do we live here! :roll_eyes:

It’s true we do sometimes get actual heat waves at seemingly random times, and we occasionally wish we had air conditioning.

1 Like
8

I’ve also noticed that I complain if it goes above, say, 75F here and I get lazy/lethargic and don’t want to move. And yet, I’ll go on vacation or a work trip to somewhere where it’s almost or over 90F everyday and feel totally fine. So I think part of it is mental - my brain rejects Bay Area heat :smiley:

3 Likes
9

A number of years ago (8ish?) we went out to the Bay Area around the 4th of July. Our relatives who live in the San Diego area joined us. Our first day there we all ended up buying heavy sweatshirts or jackets because it was cold, including men who were originally from Michigan and Maryland.

So basically, listen to @aunt_bea’s advice!

2 Likes
10

Good advice! I worked in San Francisco for a long time, and saw so many freezing tourists in the summer - wear layers and buy souvenirs you like instead of buying overpriced sweatshirts out of necessity….

1 Like
11

That’s what I was going to say. Low 60s could be summer in Maine. :slightly_smiling_face:

12

So true, our family has a huge collection of overpriced Disney outerwear just because we kept getting caught by unexpected weather. I once invited my brother and his family to Orlando, and we hit the coldest weather since 1954, and then another time it was pouring rain. The kids were small then, so they didn’t care and were happy to have more Disney stuff.

13

We went to WDW with the kids one November. They were having a great time in the pool. The lifeguards were wearing white parkas, no joke!! The kids loved the water park because it was practically empty due to the “chilly” weather, around 70. They could go on the same ride over and over again.

2 Likes
14

And yet here we are today - March 16 - and it is so hot and sunny here that I was out this morning and actually started getting dizzy and had to sit down in the shade for a while. But by the time I walk my dog after dinner this evening, I’ll be wearing a sweater :smiley:

15

This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. If you’d like to reply, please flag the thread for moderator attention.