So according to the weather service San Francisco could possibly be hit by snow Friday or Saturday. Lot’s of people are up in arms because for a lot of people who have been here for awhile don’t know what to do. Let me give you a little hint. Do nothing. Look at the picture to the left, that’s what snow in San Francisco will be perceived at by many. They’ll poke it with a stick and go about their workday.
I fondly remember the four inches of snow that came down in 1976. It was a really cold winter that year, much colder than we’ve had this year. I even remember getting up in the mornings and water that had condensed on your car was frozen solid frequently. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen that here, but I ain’t seen it once this year or last.
Just to refresh your memories if you were here in 1976, I was woken up by my Grandmother who pulled me outside in my underwear to show me the snow. Well, she was of German decent, so maybe it was more like she pushed me out in the snow. This warranted a return fire of a snowball that caused much yelling headed my way for mucking up the house with…snow. When the time came to go to school I was walking down to A. P. Giannini Junior High and there was no snow on the streets, maybe a touch on the sidewalks, but you would mostly find it on people’s bushes and grass.
When I got to the school everyone was out in front having snowball fights because that’s the only place we had any grass at the school. Note to everyone, this was a time period when people didn’t have to clean up after their dogs so some of the snowballs were more like “poopsicles.” Just keep this in mind if you get any ideas of throwing a snowball if it snows in the next few days.
School starts and we’re all excited because, well, it’s SNOW, in SAN FRANCISCO! Most of us weren’t paying attention that day to the teachers as we were too busy looking out the windows at the snow falling…IN SAN FRANCISCO! Good things have to come to an end though and when it was time for lunch a few of us snuck outside the gates to play in the snow only to realize, it was gone. Our few minutes of west coast urban dwelling in the snow was gone.
San Francisco is a beast when it comes to weather. Sure, we can have torrential downpours, but those are rare and rarely last more than a few hours before the powers that be push the rotten weather back north and just let us lounge around in our bad weather that we get.
Moving forward in time to 1986 I was working down in North Beach and from the third story of the building I was working in we noticed snowfall…AGAIN! We all ran down the stairs to stand out in the snow only to find that at ground level all we saw was a bit of fog. We ran back up to the third floor…snow…back down…fog. Snow will never beat us because of the heat generated by the smugness of the people of San Francisco. If you live in fear of snow in San Francisco take a day off work and sit in your window with the best view and sip a nice warm hot buttered rum, or you can be uber-San Francisco and run out in the snow naked with flowers in your hair [150lbs weight limit, please.]