San Francisco Weather

Temperature °F

Maximum

Minimum

Rainfall
Total In.

January

56.1

46.2

4.48

February

59.4

48.4

2.83

March

60.0

48.6

2.58

April

61.1

49.2

1.48

May

62.5

50.7

.35

June

64.3

52.5

.15

July

64.0

53.1

.04

August

65.0

54.2

.08

September

68.9

55.8

.24

October

68.3

54.8

1.09

November

62.9

51.5

2.49

December

56.9

47.2

3.52

Annual Average

62.5

51.0

19.33

Land Areas

San Francisco  (population 776,733)  49 square miles
Oakland (population 399,484) 56.06 square miles
San Jose (population 894,943) 176.6 square miles
Nine county Bay Area population: 6,693,600 people

Bird's Eye Distance

San Francisco to Los Angeles 344 miles (554 km)
San Francisco to Chicago 1,863 miles (2,998 km)
San Francisco to New York 2,582 miles (4,156 km)
San Francisco to Seattle 678 miles(1,092 km)
San Francisco to London 5,372 miles (8,645 km)
San Francisco to Paris 5,580 miles (8,981 km)
San Francisco to Tokyo 5,142 miles (8,276 km)
San Francisco to Hong Kong 6,893 miles (11,093 km)

Earthquakes

Richter Magnitudes Earthquake Effects Generally not felt but recorded Often felt but rarely causes damage Major damage to poorly constructed buildings over small regions Can be destructive in areas up to 100km across Major earthquake: can cause damage over larger areas Huge earthquake: can cause serious damage in areas several hundred miles across
Under 3.5
3.5 - 5.4
Under 6.0
6.1- 6.9
7.0 - 7.9
8.0 and up

Famous People from the Bay Area

Ansel Adams (Photographer)
Lloyd Bridges (Actor)
Clint Eastwood (Actor)
Tom Hanks (Actor)
Robin Williams (Actor)
Dave Brubeck (Musician)
Joe DiMaggio (Baseball Player)
Tom Seaver (Baseball Player)
Billy Martin (Baseball Player)		 Peggy Fleming (Figure Skater)
Kristi Yamaguchi (Figure Skater)
Ernest Gallo (Wine Maker)
Julio Gallo (Wine Maker)
Jack London (Writer)
William Saroyan (Writer)
Irving Stone (Writer)
George Lucas (Film Maker)
Mark Spitz (Swimmer)

Professional Sports Teams

Baseball San Francisco Giants
Baseball Oakland A's
Football San Francisco 49ers
Football Oakland Raiders
Basketball Golden State Warriors
Hockey San Jose Sharks
Soccer San Jose Clash

Things NOT to do in San Francisco

Don't:

- forget your coat: the weather is generally cool and can be quite cold, even in summer.
- board a bus or cable car without exact fare, drivers don't make change (Bus:$1.25 for adults, $.35 for seniors and children.Cable Car:$3.00).
- ask for Rice-A-Roni in any restaurant, you will not get it.
- park without curbing your wheels, unless you want to chase your car down the hill.
- wear shorts or t-shirts to the opera or symphony: these are formal occasions.
- call the city "Frisco": especially if you're from L.A.

Little Known San Francisco Facts

Founded First colonizing party, including the Spanish Army, arrived September 17, 1776
Patron Saint St. Francis
Songs "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," and "San Francisco"
First Newspaper The California Star
Colors Black and Gold
Flower Dahlia
Elevation Sea Level (lowest) to 938 feet at Mount Davidson (highest)
Hills 43 total
Islands 14 in the San Francisco Bay, 12 within city limits
Steepest Street Filbert between Leavenworth and Hyde (31.5% grade)
Longest Street Mission (7.29 miles)
Widest Street Sloat Boulevard (135 feet wide)
Narrowest Street DeForest Way (4.5 feet wide)

Films (a brief listing)

Fog Over Frisco (1930's) - Bette Davis
San Francisco (1930's) - Clark Gable
Dark Passage (1940's) - Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall
The Lady From Shanghai (1940's) - Written and directed by Orson Welles
The Maltese Falcon (1940's) - Humphrey Bogart
Pal Joey (1950's) - Frank Sinatra
Vertigo (1950's) - Hitchcock
Bullitt (1960's) - Steve McQueen
The Days of Wine and Roses (1960's) - Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick
The Conversation (1970's) - Gene Hackman
Dirty Harry (1970's) - Clint Eastwood
The Towering Inferno (1970's) - Steve McQueen, Paul Newman
What's Up Doc? (1970's) - Barbra Streisand, Paul Newman
Escape from Alcatraz (1980's) - Clint Eastwood
Presidio (1980's) - Sean Connery
Mrs. Doubtfire (1990's) - Robin Williams
The Rock (1990's) - Sean Connery
Bedazzled (2000) - Brendan Fraser, Elizabeth Hurley
EdTv (2000) - Directed by Ron Howard
The Wedding Planner (2000) - Jennifer Lopez

To See in San Francisco

- Chinatown
- North Beach: including Coit Tower and the Filbert Steps leading to the Grace Marchand Gardens
- Museum of Russian Culture
- Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island
- Golden Gate Park and Golden Gate Park Museums
- Anchor Brewing Company
- Victorian Homes Tour
- Alcatraz Island Tour
- Bay Cruise
- Cable Cars
- Golden Gate Bridge (get out of your car and walk across)
- Beach Blanket Babylon: longest running musical revue in theater history

- SS Jeremiah O'Brien
- Fort Point
- Japantown

- Cathedral of
  St. Mary's of
  the Assumption
- Museum of
   Modern Art
  

Events

February Chinese New Year Celebration and Parade (Chinatown)
March

St. Patrick's Day Parade (Fifth and Market to Embarcadero)
April Cherry Blossom Festival (Japantown)
April/May San Francisco International Film Festival (415-931-FILM)
May San Francisco Bay to Breakers Footrace (Embarcadero to Ocean Beach, 415-359-1707)
  Carnaval San Francisco (Mission District)
June Haight Street Fair (Haight Street)
  San Francisco Black Film Festival (415-346-0199)
  North Beach Festival (Grant and Green Street)
  San Francisco Gay Pride Celebration Parade (Embarcadero to Civic Center)
June-August Stern Grove Festival (Free outdoor performing arts (Stern Grove)
July 4th of July Waterfront Festival (Fisherman's Wharf)
  Cable Car Bell-Ringing Celebration (Union Square)
August Nihonmachi Street Fair (Post Street between Laguna and Fillmore - Japantown)
September San Francisco Shakespeare Festival (Golden Gate Park)
  San Francisco Blues Festival (Fort Mason)
  Sausalito Art Festival (Sausalito)
  Ghirardelli Square Chocolate Festival (Ghirardelli Square)
October Fleet Week (Embarcadero and Fisherman's Wharf)
  San Francisco Jazz Festival (415-788-7353)
  Castro Street Fair (Castro Street)
  Italian Heritage Festival and Parade (Fisherman's Wharf and North Beach)

Photo Opportunities and City Landmarks

- The Golden Gate Bridge
- The Bay Bridge from the rooftop of the Beyond Pix studios
- The skyline view of San Francisco as seen from Treasure Island
- The Marin Headlands including beautiful Oceanside views of the Golden Gate and the city skyline
- Hyde and Lombard Streets, the cable cars and a view of Alcatraz from the world•s most crooked street
- Cable car posts and turn around at Union Square (Powell and Market) and at Fisherman•s Wharf
- The views of Seal Rock and the Sutro Mansion and Sutro Baths ruins from Ocean Beach
- Fort Point under the Golden Gate Bridge
- Masonic, west of Geary, looking back into the city
- Sunsets and the Golden Gate Park Dutch Windmill from Sutro Heights Park
- The homes of SeaCliff from Lands End park
- Views of the city from the water
- Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina

A Brief and Bulleted History of San Francisco

  • In 1775, San Juan Manual de Ayala sailed into the San Francisco Bay for the first time.
  • Prior to the arrival of Europeans, over 10,000 indigenous people lived here later to be called the Oholone (Miwok for “western people”).
  • In the same year, Juan Bautista de Anza established a fort and a mission near the harbor:
    • The Presidio on the southern side of the Golden Gate
    • Mission Dolores on the banks of Delores Creek
  • Mission Dolores’ first mass was celebrated on June 29th, 1776.
  • In 1792, the first foreign ship, the HMS Discovery, passed through the San Francisco Bay.
  • Throughout the 1830’s, people began coming in from France, Great Britain, and the U.S.
  • Gold was discovered on January 24, 1848, at John Sutter’s sawmill in Colma.
  • In 1849, 549 ships entered the Golden Gate swelling the city’s population.
    • Sailors abandoned ships in order to search for gold.
    • Some of these ships were beached and used as hotels or for commercial purposes.
  • An estimated 30,000 people traveled cross-country to California in 1849, 55,000 came in 1850, and 60,000 throughout 1851-52.
    • Population in 1847 – 450 people (not including the mission or the Presidio)
    • Population in 1850 – 25,000 people
    • Population by the end of the 1850’s – over 55,000 people
  • San Francisco was incorporated as a city on April 15, 1850 by the California Legislature.
  • In 1852, the city adopted its first official seal, later revised in 1859, to include depictions of a sailor and a miner.
  • In the 1840s and 1850s, Chinese laborers were recruited to build the railroads, work the mines, and tend the fields of a growing, prosperous America. By the 1870s, with the mother lode running dry and the economy turning shaky, anti-Chinese sentiment swelled.
  • April 3, 1860 - The pioneer pony of the famous express today begins its first trip across the continent.
  • On a spring day in 1868, banker James Sloan Hutchinson stepped in to stop two horsemen who were dragging a squealing boar off to market along the street's rough cobblestones. The incident moved Hutchinson to call together a group of fellow humanitarians to found the San Francisco SPCA.
  • September 6, 1869 – the first westbound train arrives in San Francisco.
  • By 1870, San Francisco had become the 10th largest city in the United States.  Currently it is the 5th largest.
  • On August 2, 1873, the first cable car was showcased – running down Clay Street from Jackson to Kearny.
  • In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring all Chinese immigration--a law that was not repealed for more than 60years.
  • "Black Bart", a gentleman bandit who has been robbing Wells Fargo stages throughout northern California, turns out to be respectable bank clerk Charles Bolton – 1883.
  • In 1892, Sierra Club is founded by 182 charter members. John Muir is elected president. In its first conservation effort, the Sierra Club leads campaign to defeat a proposed reduction in the boundaries of Yosemite National Park.
  • April 18, 1906, an earthquake (magnitude 7.8) hit San Francisco causing fires to rage for days, killing 700, and destroying 28,000 buildings.
  • Angel Island opened in 1910. For 30 years, Angel Island served as a point of entry to the United States for many immigrants.  Unlike Ellis Island in New York though, it also served as a prison for hundreds of Chinese immigrants.
  • In California a special election was held on October 10, 1911 to vote on Senate Constitutional Amendment No. 8 granting suffrage to women. The amendment passed by a margin of 3,507 votes.
  • The Palace of Fine Arts was created by architect Bernard R. Maybeck for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. He chose as his theme a Roman ruin, mutilated and overgrown, in the mood of a Piranesi engraving.
  • In 1924, 260,000,000 passengers, including those using transfers, rode on the Market Street Railway Company for a five-cent fare, which also entitled them to transfers good all over the system, on cars equipped with modern conveniences.
  • 1929 - The Great Highway and Ocean Beach Esplanade were completed. Completion of the highway was noted on June 9, by a monster celebration. More than 50,000 people massed at the end of Lincoln Way at Ocean Beach. Music from a band of 1014 musicians filled the air, while thousands of autoists tooted horns to add to the noise of the occasion.
  • San Francisco Ballet is founded in 1933, and is to become America's oldest professional ballet company, enjoying a long and rich tradition of artistic "firsts." The Company performed as the San Francisco Opera Ballet, primarily appearing in lavish full-length opera productions and offering rare evenings of "all-dance" programs throughout the year.
  • On January 18, 1935, the San Francisco Museum of Art, under the leadership of founding director Grace L. McCann Morley, opens in the fourth floor of the War Memorial Veterans Building.
  • The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened on November 12, 1936. It remains one of the largest bridges in the world and carries more traffic than any other toll bridge - over 270,000 vehicles each day.
  • The concept of bridging the vast Golden Gate Strait was proposed as early as 1872, by railroad entrepreneur Charles Crocker. It was not until 1916, however, that the idea of a bridge was revived by James Wilkins, newspaper editor of the San Francisco Call Bulletin. 
  • The Bridge was completed and opened to pedestrian traffic on May 27, 1937. The following day it was opened to vehicular traffic.
  • In 1950, the 49ers struggled through their NFL debut, winning only three games. A rival coach described them as "not big enough or tough enough."
  • Founded in 1952, as the Bay Area Educational Television Association, the early volunteers began a long, uncharted journey forming the basis for what is today KQED, one of the first public broadcasting companies in America.
  • On January 1, 1965, the New Year's Eve costume ball at California Hall, to raise funds for the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, was harassed by police. It became a turning point in the San Francisco gay rights movement.
  • The San Francisco Diggers became one of the legendary groups in the Haight-Ashbury during the years 1966 to 1968. They took their name from the original English Diggers of the 1640s. The San Francisco Diggers combined street theater, anarchy, direct action, and art happenings in their social agenda. Their most famous activities revolved around Free Food (every day in the Panhandle), and the Free Store (where everything was free for the taking.)
  • In June of 1987, a small group of strangers gathered in a San Francisco storefront to document the lives they feared history would neglect. Their goal was to create a memorial for those who had died of AIDS, and to thereby help people understand the devastating impact of the disease. This meeting of devoted friends and lovers served as the foundation of The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.
  • October 17, 1989 - 7.1 magnitude Earthquake hits Bay Area.
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