SUNSET SANDS

Oceanfront Vacation Rental
Mission Beach
San Diego, California

 


Arial View

Mission Bay And Surrounds From the Sky

Mission Beach, Mission Bay, San Diego

 


AREA MAP

Mission Beach and surrounds...

 


 Places of Interest in San Diego

San Diego Points of Interest
   


 

WEATHER

The Southern California coastal area, and San Diego in particular, has the most consistent and temperate weather in the U.S. In fact, San Diego is one of the few vacation destinations in the world that has excellent weather year round. It is never too hot or too cold! And very little rain - only 9 inches per year!!

San Diego is one of the few small areas of the world included in in the "Mediteranean" climate zone. It is characterized by warm, sunny and dry conditions, and with little variance in temperature. Beside the countries surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea, other places thtat enjoy this climate zone are central Chile and near Perth and Adelaide in Australia.

Visitors from the north can escape the cold and snow, and the desert dwellers of the southwest claim the San Diego coastal zone as their own. The ocean is the moderating influence on the weather. And finally, here's a note of trivia about the environment there that may perk up some ears. There are no (or virtually no) mosquitoes at the beach year-round!

The figures listed below tell the tale. Although the summer brings the warmest weather, it is the peak season for visitors. This is due mainly to the Southwesterners escaping their searing summer heat. But the fall, winter, and spring months have beautiful mild weather as well. You may find the off season the best time to come.

 

  San Diego Weather Staats

  Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Avg Max Temp 65 66 66 68 69 71 76 78 77 75 70 66 71
Avg Min Temp 48 50 52 55 58 61 65 67 65 60 54 49 57
Average Temp 57 58 59 61 63 66 70 72 71 68 62 57 64
% Sunshine 71 72 70 67 58 57 69 69 68 68 74 72 68
Humidity AM 70 73 74 75 77 81 81 81 79 75 73 71 76
Humidity PM 56 58 59 59 64 66 65 66 65 62 62 58 62
Rainfall in. 2.1 1.4 1.6 .7 .2 .0 .0 .1 .1 .3 1.1 1.3 9.3

 


Go to wavewatch.com for your local surf forecasts

 


THE GREEN FLASH


The "Green Flash" is a rarely viewed optical phenomena that occurs at sunset at the instant that the upper rim of the sun is in coincidence with the horizon. The Green Flash is caused by a combination of optical effects called light scattering and light dispersion.

Sunlight is composed of all the colors of the visible spectrum. Blue light is the component part of the visible spectrum that is strongly scattered by the earth's atmosphere at sunset. Therefore sunlight tends to laok blue when the sun is near the horizon. Dispersion is the splitting of white light into its component parts. The red end of the visible spectrum shows the least amount of dispersion since it is refracted the least.

At sunset most of the orange and yellow light is absorbed by the earth's atmosphere, while the blue and violet light are scattered. Once the red light portion of the spectrum has already set below the horizon all that is left is the green, which is occasionally seen as a short intense flash. Under ideal conditions one may perceive a brilliant Green Flash at the moment of sunset.

Mission Beach is home to a sunset "ceremony" in which people from all walks of life stop what they are doing and together watch the sun sink beneath the horizon. The awe and wonder of this event is undiminished despite its daily repetition.

However, beside this reverence for the natural order of things, there is also the anticipation that something 'extraordinary" will happen this time. And so the majestic sunset, which moments before dissolved the barriers between generations, genders, and cultures, is replaced by a new social division - those that have seen the green flash, and those that have not. It can be seen by a one-time visitor while eluding a local resident for decades.

Web sites about the Green Flash...

Watch for the Green Flash!

 

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