Why San Francisco is So Foggy and a Look into the Giants Baseball Stadium

Autumn is probably the warmest season of the year for San Francisco. It's when that thick gray blanket of fog that stubbornly hovers over the city relents and rolls back to allow the sun to take its turn to dominate the skies for a few precious months.

I'm heading to San Francisco this week to visit family members, and for this trip as opposed to my July trip where I was packing wool coats, scarves sweaters and thick leggings, I will be packing a summer dresses, and lots of them.

People often wonder why San Francisco is so cold and foggy in the summers. In fact, it often seems like San Francisco is at its coldest when the rest of the nation is suffering from some horrendous heat wave. This inverse relationship is probably a coincidence, however, heat in other parts of California does play a significant factor in producing fog in San Francisco. The majestic cloudy phenomenon is created when the hot air mass from the Central Valley (middle of California) clashes with the frigid air blowing from the Pacific Ocean, producing massive condensation that billows through the Golden Gate and over the hills of San Francisco. The hotter it is in the Central Valley, the more likely it is that San Francisco will be cold and under a thick layer of fog. In fact, this year's fog banks were unusually large and deep - sometimes as much as 2,800 feet thick.

This is a picture of the San Francisco Giant's stadium in mid-July - that's right in July! While records were breaking across the nation for the hottest July on record, San Francisco was suffering from one of its coldest summers in recent memory.

Lou the Giant's mascot comes out to excite the crowd. On this day he was throwing out favors to baseball fans. Can you guess what it was? I'll give you a hint: It's not popcorn or peanuts.

Lou was throwing out Giant's scarves to the crowd, that's right those fuzzy long pieces of cloth that you wrap around your neck to keep you warm. It was THAT cold!

Also popular was the hot cocoa guy. Can you imagine having hot chocolate in the middle of summer and perhaps thinking that this wasn't enough to warm you up?

Of course, it was 55 F that evening, and everyone was bundled up.

Despite the frigid weather, every visit to the Giant's baseball stadium is exciting and when there are fireworks it is purely magical. The fireworks show is perhaps the most spectacular close-up light show I have ever observed. I've been to a couple of them and each and every time it just takes my breath away. Because it is so close, it often feels like the fireworks show is happening just for you. If you are in town and even somewhat follow baseball, this place is worth a visit.

A special thanks for one of my best friends Gloria for providing tickets to this game, which was very appropos given that the San Francisco Giants were playing the New York Mets.  On this evening the Giants won, but the next night the Mets won, so there we're even. A little rivalry never hurts.