Sir Francis Drake
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In 1579, British explorer Sir Francis Drake sailed his ship along the present day northern California coast. The debate about what, if anything, Drake discovered there is as foggy as San Francisco afternoon in July. Hi I'm Dave Thurlow from The Mount Washington Observatory and this is The Weather Notebook. Explorer, merchant, pirate... just some of the words used by historians to describe Sir Francis Drake. For now though, let's just look at him as a weather observer.

Half way through his three year journey around the world, Drake found himself somewhere near present day San Francisco. For nearly a month his daily weather observation was simply this -- fog. Had he and his crew been able to see more than a few hundred feet they would have caught a glimpse of the entrance to one of the finest natural harbors in the world, San Francisco Bay. It is not known for sure what stretch of Pacific coastline he managed to bump into. It could have been anywhere from San Francisco to Seattle. But it's no surprise that he found fog, because fog is an almost constant part of the seascape there.

As Drake and his crew bobbed about in their ship exceptionally cold Pacific ocean water below them was cooling the air above and condensing the moisture in the air into a surface hugging cloud - fog. The fog that lurks off shore almost continuously and even though Drake heard the waves crashing he didn't dare get too close because he couldn't see. But had Sir Francis Drake been able to find the passage into the bay through the Golden Gate, he would have discovered how the fog dries up before it goes more than a mile or two inland. He would have discovered one of the most agreeable climates on earth, around the San Francisco Bay.

The Weather Notebook is produced by The Mount Washington Observatory in cooperation with New Hampshire Public Radio. Please check our web site for transcripts and other weather information, at www.mountwashington.org. Major funding for our show comes from The National Science Foundation, with support from Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive.