San Francisco is one of the most humid cities in the US (so much that mold can be a problem). Relative humidity is on average higher than Wash DC --but lower than Port Arthur, TX.

But SF is also very chilly for California so it really helps with the perception of humidity.

Humidity isn't so bad when it's in the 50s/60s Fahrenheit all the time.

Right heat + humidity is bad, humidity alone isn't even noticed.

I am not sure if you are speaking from experience or looking at weather data, but in 13 years I have never seen indoor humidity high enough to make mold likely. Higher humidity with cool temperatures does not feel like high humidity with high temperatures, which can be unbearable. I sweat profusely in the latter conditions and not all all in the former.

Over by the Great Highway mold can be an issue. But not only there. Yes the cool temps make the humidity very much less noticeable.

No, it's very noticeable. Instead of being hot and damp you've got cold that chills you to the bone and you're still really sticky and damp. It doesn't hurt that things stay very foggy so you can pretty much see the humidity (but not the silver painted trams).

True, it becomes noticeable at night as the winds become stronger and the fog denser.

Yes, there are a lot of microclimates here and I suppose in some mold could be likely.

To that point though, most of the neighborhoods I have lived in have had little to no fog. Russian Hill being the exception. I’m not sure how much of a difference that makes in indoor relative humidity or chance of mold.

Lived in the Presidio, all my neighbors plus our house has a pretty big mold problem, likely from the humidity. When we called maintenance, the answer was to manage airflow and yeah, it’s the presidio, stuffs gonna mold.

To be fair, the Presidio is the foggiest/most humid part of SF. Any part of the city & broader Bay Area directly touching coast line attracts dramatically more moisture than anywhere even a few hundred meters inland. Even in the Marina district half a mile away mold isn’t an issue afaik

To be double fair, it sometimes felt that the Presidio was only technically part of SF. We used to joke that it was really Marin's foothold on the peninsula.

It may have to do with a combination of location (like around great highway, for example) and age of the buildings, design and along with materials used in construction. Modern/ish buildings are likely unaffected.

> San Francisco is one of the most humid cities in the US (so much that mold can be a problem).

I've lived in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Georgia and mold has never not been a problem in those states. I have never lived in San Francisco though so I can't compare.

A friend of mine lived out in the upper 40s for a bit. I don't think mold was an issue for the building so much as it was for their poor dog that perpetually had some sort of skin condition in 'till they both moved somewhere more arid. San Francisco is a peninsula so you're surrounded by large bodies of water on most sides. Winter is brutally humid especially if you're west of Twin Peaks.

That’s odd, I was just in Savanah and every place I went there smelled like mold. It was overpowering in one store I went into, where a local remarked that you don’t notice after awhile.

That sort of reminds me of Bali: their new airport already smelled like mold a year after opening. I lived in the south for a few years but I never remember smelling mold so thickly.

“Never not been a problem” it was a double negative I think you are agreeing.

Yeah, I was in a COVID medicine haze, I think I misread that.

San Francisco is moist. But respectfully, it is not the hot humidity that drives you to to find air conditioning and plan you day around staying inside to avoid.

Idk if the second part is really fair - as a Texan turned SF resident, I can understand how the Texas heat can be alarming at first. But if definitely didn’t stop us from going outside, doing things, holding sports practices (outside the rare 115 degree day), etc.

The AC is appreciated, but you get acclimated to the heat. And anecdata of one, but I really miss the heat / humidity.

Texas civilization does predate AC after all for at least a couple centuries ;)

Those 115F days are less rare now.

> San Francisco is one of the most humid cities in the US

Yes, but its neither particularly hot (so it doesn't tend to be muggy), nor particularly cold (its cold for the densely populated parts of California, but that's not saying much), so the humidity isn't much of a problem.

Hence one of the reasons it waa attractive before it was a center of the tech industry.

I’m from the PNW but my dad went into nuclear power so I had the privilege of living in Vicksburg Mississippi for four years as a teenager. I don’t get it. Also tried Austin for a summer when in grad school…, my dashboard melted before I realized you really need those sun protection thingies.