Harold Gilliam – författare

The San Francisco experience is not an encounter you can enjoy in an hour or a day or at a particular time or location. It is a composite of innumerable experiences over long periods of time in the entire region around the bay. San Francisco as a social and cultural entity long ago spilled over the political boundaries that were drawn up a century ago for another era. Nearly one-third of the people who during the day work and shop within the city limits go home at night beyond the bay or down the Peninsula. Nearly all of the tourists and visitors who come to the city also visit the far shores. Even the relatively few who do not venture across the bridges experience something of the far shores when they gaze across the bay from Nob Hill or Russian Hill or through the big windows at the Top of the Mark or the Crown Room of the Fairmont.—from the Preface

Possibly no comparable area on earth displays as many varieties of weather simultaneously as the San Francisco Bay Region. Harold Gilliam explains the atmospheric forces and geologic formations that come together in this region's unique confluence of wind, river, ocean, bay, and hills. The fully revised and updated edition of this best-selling book incorporates the latest scientific information - much of it gathered from satellite technology - that has greatly improved our understanding of the weather in the years since the book was first published. Writing in a delightfully engaging style, Gilliam provides the tools necessary for understanding the grand show of nature that takes place around the San Francisco Bay - from Napa Valley in the north to San Jose in the south. Using nontechnical language to define weather terms and the general principles needed to understand weather patterns, Gilliam explains such phenomena as the jet stream, the famous summer fog that pours over the Golden Gate Bridge, and the often dangerous winter tule fog.This edition also includes a discussion of the planetary influences that may cause long-term changes in the local climate: Gilliam explains the 'greenhouse effect' and what global warming could mean for the San Francisco Bay Area, looks at the local effects of the El Nino and La Nina phenomena, and considers the thinning of the ozone layer. This fascinating book, enhanced with informative maps, diagrams, and color illustrations, is liberally sprinkled with references to Bay Area neighborhoods and geographic features, giving the book a lively sense of local color.