The San Francisco Bay Area offers a significant variety of microclimates because the hills, mountains, and large bodies of water produce such vast geographic diversity within this region. The San Francisco Bay area exhibits a plethora of landscapes, ranging from the Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco Bay to the Santa Cruz Mountains. The San Francisco Bay Area terrain includes 35 mountain ranges, and the most notable is Mount Davidson (928 ft) in the center of San Francisco. The Pacific Ocean borders the state of California and also the coastal region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The San Francisco Bay area is host to three bays: San Pablo Bay, Suisan Bay, and one of the largest bays in the world, the San Francisco Bay. The Bay Area includes 15 major waterways, and the largest rivers in the area being the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, which dump into the Suisan Bay. Water transportation is a large part of tourism, in which boats provide tours in the San Francisco Bay to view the notorious prison Alcatraz and the famous Golden Gate Bridge.
San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, CA
The areas near the Pacific Ocean are generally characterized by small temperature variations during the year, with cool foggy summers and mild rainy winters. Inland areas, especially those separated from the ocean by hills or mountains, have hotter summers and colder overnight temperatures during the winter (weather.gov). San Jose at the south end of the Bay averages fewer than 15 inches of rain annually, while Napa at the north end of the Bay averages over 30 inches and parts of the Santa Cruz