Heating degree days: ranking of metro areas in California

Order: highest value first. This indicator is neutral: a higher value does not mean a better one.

Heating degree days: ranking of metro areas in California: Santa Rosa ranks first (1,435 °C·days per year) and Los Angeles last (450 °C·days per year). The median across 16 the state's metro areas is 1,025 °C·days per year. Observation period: 2016-2025. Source: NOAA NCEI, GHCN-Daily.

Yearly sum of how far the mean daily temperature falls below 18 °C. The higher the value, the longer and harder homes need heating.

Data quality: measured at a single station, often at an airport; not an average for the metro area; years with incomplete data are excluded.

#Metro areaValue
1Santa Rosa1,435 °C·days per year
2San Francisco1,365 °C·days per year
3Santa Maria1,214 °C·days per year
4Salinas1,167 °C·days per year
5Stockton1,148 °C·days per year
6Sacramento1,050 °C·days per year
7Visalia1,031 °C·days per year
8Vallejo1,030 °C·days per year
9San Jose1,020 °C·days per year
10Fresno1,012 °C·days per year
11Modesto990 °C·days per year
12Bakersfield938 °C·days per year
13Oxnard868 °C·days per year
14Riverside632 °C·days per year
15San Diego487 °C·days per year
16Los Angeles450 °C·days per year

Only places with a value for the indicator are ranked; a gap is not a zero. A ranking on one indicator is not an assessment of a place to live.

Compare Santa Rosa and San Francisco