Eh, when we want snow, we drive to Tahoe. It's just a few hours away from most populated areas in Northern California. I think most Californians think that way. Snow is fun to visit, but we wouldn't want to live there...
> you can drive for miles and still be in the same state ... all the landscapes look pretty ordinary, and then you suddenly see a palm tree
Yeah, CA covers a lot of area.You get the Sierras, the vast central valley, the coastal cities, and the small mountains and rolling hills in the North. LA is in a desert (historically, so even before much of the state turned into a desert recently), so there's definitely a different climate there than the rest of the state.
Fair enough, but that's why we cluster at the coast. Much more temperate. :)
Although, the last few years haven't been as hot, IIRC. Growing up, I remember when we would have multiple periods in the summer where it was in the low 100's for 3-5 days in a row, and that doesn't seem to be happening in recent years (but I could just be remembering outliers).
That said, 100 degrees here isn't the same as 100 degrees there. It's all dry heat here. I would take a dry 100 over a muggy, humid 85 any day (but that's what I grew up with). I've been to the east coast a few times in the summer, and walking out of an air conditioned building into the humidity is still something I distinctly remember more than twenty years later.
And the house I grew up in didn't have AC for 10 years. At all. If we wanted to be cool, our best chance was either the basement, or our neighbor's houses.
> you can drive for miles and still be in the same state ... all the landscapes look pretty ordinary, and then you suddenly see a palm tree
Yeah, CA covers a lot of area.You get the Sierras, the vast central valley, the coastal cities, and the small mountains and rolling hills in the North. LA is in a desert (historically, so even before much of the state turned into a desert recently), so there's definitely a different climate there than the rest of the state.