Brrr! The Bay Area's ocean temperatures are colder than Alaska's

Bianca Valenti drops into a big wave at Ocean Beach on December 1, 2015. Bianca Valenti drops into a big wave at Ocean Beach on December 1, 2015. Photo: Bruce W. Topp/NorcalSurfPhotos Photo: Bruce W. Topp/NorcalSurfPhotos Image 1 of / 13 Caption Close Brrr! The Bay Area's ocean temperatures are colder than Alaska's 1 / 13 Back to Gallery

The ocean temperatures off the coast of Northern California are cooler than Alaska's. But the shocking part? That's actually normal.

Real-time Sea Surface Temperature (SST) charts confirm what local surfers and surprised tourists alike might be feeling — San Francisco is freezing in the summer.

The chart from Monday morning pins Northern California's coastal temperatures at around 55 degrees. Even much of Alaska's coast isn't that cold.

But that's very normal for the Bay Area, says Jan Null, a meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services. "It's part of our summertime pattern."

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Frigid waters and endless fog are all cyclical phenomena for the Bay Area, and they have to do with something called upwelling, which is when extremely cold water from deep in the ocean rises to the top.

"You go farther north, and it's warmer on the Seattle coast, or the Alaska coast," Null said. "They don't have the upwelling."

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Other West Coast spots don't experience upwelling because they don't have the same warm interior as the Bay Area, Null said. "They don't get the Northwest winds that are parallel to the coastline, like we do. It's all geography."

And the fog? That's fueled by the upwelling. Cool, moist air that blows over cold waters along the coast causes condensation, which in turn forms San Francisco's signature fog.

Null says he doesn't expect the ocean temperatures off California's coast to warm up at least for the next eight days. The only part of the Bay Area's forecast that is a little bit curious, he says, is how stagnant it's been.

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The forecast for the rest of the week only varies by a degree or two, plus or minus, he said.

"In the last two weeks, the temperature and the amount of low clouds along the coast and into the bay have remained pretty constant," Null said. "That's a little unusual that there would be such a flat pattern. Usually we see bigger changes."