I grew up in San Francisco (fourth generation). My wife Katy, is from Peru. One day Katy said it was too hot! It was 73. The next day she said it was too cold! It was 72. So I concluded that the perfect temperature was 72.5.
The Air Force sent me to a number of places where the snow was in drifts 20 feet high. Minot, North Dakota, Lewistown, Montana, San Angelo, Texas, Orlando, Florida, Grandview, Missouri, and many other places, had interesting weather.
You can drive about 150 miles east from the California Coast, and in the winter be in snow. One year we had a storm that hit us hard, leaving 17 feet of snow in the Sierra's. It did not make the national news. That same storm left 17 inches on the Rockies, and did make the national news. We have deserts, and glaciers not too far apart. You can drive 50 miles east of San Francisco, and think that you are in Mississippi. So we have very definite areas of distinct weather, as well as value systems.
In 1965-66 we lived in San Angelo, Texas, and we found out that a tornado had destroyed the downtown section. Steel reinforced buildings were destroyed. We lived a few block from downtown, and our land lady said: "Don't worry about tornados! The brick building we live in will protect us"!
The day we arrived in Grandview, Missouri (July 1966), they had an official sighting of 180 tornados that day, in our county. The week we left (October 1967) there were two tornados that touched down within 1 1/2 miles of our apartment, and a twister was directly over our apartment house but did not touch down.
We do have a variety of weather conditions in our country. Our weather persons that give the local weather really have a great job! They change the weather forecast for each news program. I think they make it up as they go along!
They can tell us two weeks in advance what the weather is going to be like, but have no clue what the hi or low temp was for the day.
Tom