Spare The Air

It realized today that Sacramento does have great season variability. I remember while growing up, we would have what would be called “spare the air day.” I was young and naïve then, although some may argue this hasn’t changed, but these days always baffled me. I remember the noon duty aids would rally all the children up during lunch and recess to sit under a tree. It took me a long time to understand why we did this. I always thought it was because the pollution was exceptionally high on those days, and somehow by sitting under a tree, we “spared” the air. Of course now I understand that we sat under trees because the weather was extremely hot and you could see what I think is heat radiating from the concrete, I could totally be wrong, but that’s what it looked like. It now makes sense logically why we sat under trees, Sacramento has a Mediterranean climate, and is classified as part of the Mesothermal climates where there is great seasonal variations. We have very, very warm summers leading to certain “spare the air day,” and typically mild winters with precipitation.