“There is a saying about the inhabitants of this misty little forest town: they don’t tan, they rust. It’s that drizzle, salt and grayness are part of the daily life of the northern tip of California”, explains Don Hofacker.
While much of the Golden State swelters under a dome of heat, the Los Angeles Times traveled to Humboldt Bay in Northern California. A “cold oasis”, headlines the daily, which interviewed Hofacker. Guide in a maritime museum on the peninsula of Samoa, this last makes a point of pointing out that, sometimes, “It’s a hell of a heat.” And to insist:
“It can get really, really hot here. Sometimes up to 28°C.”
When asked about the temperatures in the south of the state – records of almost 45°C have been recorded in the Los Angeles area –, “Hofacker jokes that he knows only one other place with such heat: hell”.
“Here we have natural air conditioning”, Explain Doug Boushey, meteorologist at Eureka, opposite the peninsula. The Pacific Ocean acts as a “pump that brings in cool, moist air”, he explains to the newspaper. The expert continues:
“When it’s warm inland, all that warm air mass rises into the atmosphere, and the colder sea air is sucked in, like a vacuum cleaner, to fill that void. The warm air mass high up acts like a lid and traps the heavier cool air, which can no longer move towards the mountains.”
With highs expected this week around 17-19°C, Eureka is even cooler than San Francisco, known for its chilly summers, note it Los Angeles Times. And contrary to what is happening in the rest of the United States, its winters have been getting colder in recent years: “Since 1970, the average winter temperature has dropped by 0.8°C.”
According to the locals, this little corner of paradise at the time of climate change no longer goes unnoticed, adds the newspaper. Of the “climate refugees” seeking to escape fires or heat “raise housing prices in an already tight market”.