Climate
The climate is Mediterranean with cool to cold, wet, in some cases snowy winters (extreme east and north valley areas) and dry, hot summers. Usually the areas north of interstate 210 and east of interstate 215 see colder weather in the winter with occasional snowfall. Sage scrub and the Yucca plant are the predominant natural vegetation along washes and uplands; it intergrades with chaparral at elevations of 600 to 700 m. Other vegetation consists of a patchwork of grasslands, riparian woodlands, and mixed hardwood forests, which border the valley in the mountains on the north and east. The Santa Ana winds blow into the valley from the Cajon Pass, which exits the valley's north end between the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains. The seasonal Santa Ana winds are felt particularly strongly in the San Bernardino area as warm and dry air is channeled through nearby Cajon Pass at times during the autumn months. This phenomenon markedly increases the wildfire danger in the foothill, canyon, and mountain communities that the cycle of cold wet winters and dry summers helps create.
| Monthly Normal High and Low Temperatures for San Bernardino | |||||||||||||
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avg high °F | 62 | 66 | 68 | 71 | 77 | 91 | 102 | 103 | 89 | 80 | 71 | 64 | 75 |
| Avg low °F | 34 | 35 | 41 | 46 | 50 | 53 | 60 | 60 | 57 | 50 | 42 | 37 | 46 |
Read more about this topic: San Bernardino Valley
Famous quotes containing the word climate:
“The climate has been described as “ten months winter and two months mighty late in the fall.””
—Administration in the State of Colo, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“A tree is beautiful, but what’s more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples’ character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe.... What a terrible future!”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“The question of place and climate is most closely related to the question of nutrition. Nobody is free to live everywhere; and whoever has to solve great problems that challenge all his strength actually has a very restricted choice in this matter. The influence of climate on our metabolism, its retardation, its acceleration, goes so far that a mistaken choice of place and climate can not only estrange a man from his task but can actually keep it from him: he never gets to see it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)