Seasons in Santa Barbara — "rainy" and "fire"

From her East Coast perch Chiaro asked me a while ago how we, in Santa Barbara, experience the change of seasons. Fair question, since the image of southern California is one of unending sunshine, soft breezes, year-round warmth. But while seasonal changes may indeed go unnoticed in Los Angeles or San Diego -- except that hot gets hotter -- such is not the case here. In fact, one wag has said that sometimes we get all four seasons in one day!

Santa Barbara is situated on the only stretch of California coast whose orientation is east-west rather than north-south. This controls the intersection of mountain, wind and water that creates our local climate, which can be quite different from that of our neighbors.

The weather compilations here rather belie the experience "on the ground." There can be substantial variations in temperature and humidity in any season. And there can be a five- or ten-degree difference in temperature readings, day or night, between downtown Santa Barbara and Goleta -- we live halfway between the two -- a distance of about 10 miles.

The "rainy season" is supposed to be from November through March, though "below-average" rainfalls seem to be the norm. (How do they measure an "average" then?) Early morning fog rolling off the ocean -- particularly prevalent in May and June -- usually puts enough moisture in the air to keep our lawn green without our having to water it. When it's not the rainy season it's the fire season. But as we've seen, tragically, in the last couple of years fire season has become a year-round phenomenon.

Outliers: During the winter of 2007-2008, there was a deep freeze that lasted several days. It very nearly killed our bougainvillea, which has finally now come back. And just in the last week we've experienced record high temperatures: 101° at the airport, where the previous record for the date had been 84°. It's currently 89°. The overnight humidity, which should be 80%, has been in the teens and twenties.

Sundowners and the Jesusita conflagration: And then there are the famous "sundowners", the hot winds blowing from the desert over the mountains which both raise the temperature and lower the humidity -- the meteorological conditions which can turn a small fire into the kind of raging inferno that has been wreaking havoc here in the last few days. The foothills and the spine of the Santa Ynez mountains behind them form Santa Barbara's stunning backdrop. They are part of the city's glory, and at times are the gates of hell.

Mid-afternoon yesterday, just as firefighters, officials and citizens were breathing a great sigh of relief -- the winds had died down overnight -- all of a sudden hot gusts started coming down over the ridges and through the canyons, and seemingly within minutes, the fireline had reignited. There is brilliant reporting of that moment here from a journalist embedded with a group of firefighters on the front lines.

As I write, at 2:45 p.m., we are holding our breath and praying that today won't be a repeat of yesterday. If it is, there is a serious danger that the flames could actually reach the city itself.

Other signs of seasons:

I really can tell, though, when the seasons change. We have several walnut trees in our garden. They are deciduous. As autumn comes they drop their leaves -- and their nuts, making a field day for flocks of crows who at other times of year are not in evidence.

And spring? Ah. As the jacaranda trees downtown enter their brief period of blooming, they form a gentle purple scrim. And just down the road from my house, there is this lovely wisteria, a sign of spring I watch for when nothing else will do.