Looking west over San Francisco. Downtown is in the bottom center of picture next to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

Some landmarks familiar to natives and visitors:

The Embarcadero is the street at the edge of the city offering access to its many docks. Central to the picture in the foreground is the western terminus of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. To its left, the prominent inlet is China Basin, with the home field of the San Francisco Giants baseball team at the water's edge. The right of the bridge, the tower at the water's edge near the first wide dock is the Ferry Building, which sits at the foot of Market Street. The grid of streets east and south of Market (in the district called SOMA - South of Market Area) are parallel or perpendicular, while those north of Market are diagonal.

The T shaped greensward in the distance is the "panhandle" and eastern portions of Golden Gate Park, extending under the fog to Ocean Beach. The the left of the park, the large television tower atop Mt Sutro can be seen barely showing its top above the fog. To the right of Golden Gate Park the prominent street is Geary Boulevard through the Richmond District and further to the right under the tree cover is the Presidio of San Francisco, since Spanish colonial times (beginning in 1776), a military installation, once a U.S. Army base and still a military cemetery, now part of the GGNRA (Golden Gate National Recreational Area).

Proceeding toward the viewer on the right edge of the city is Crissy Field and its restored tidal marshland, then the San Francisco Maritime Museum, Fisherman's Wharf, and at the first prominent docks, Fort Baker, now a cultural center for theater, art and music.

Coming around the corner, Telegraph Hill with its crowning Coit Tower overlooks the financial district, with the Transamerica Pyramid and the much bulkier, dark stoned Bank of America Building in the background.

Visible in the distance is the fog that typically covers the western third to half of the city during Summer months, sometimes even advancing at night over the east bay hills into the inland areas. The best overall weather in the city is usually between mid September through early November, when for long periods a typical inshore high pressure area causes an offshore airflow, driving the fog out to sea. Usually starting sometime in November, winter rainstorms will periodically sweep down the Pacific from the Gulf of Alaska as the jet stream follows a more southern seasonal path, with intervening episodes of bright, fair weather. Frequently there will be a midwinter dry spell of four to six weeks duration in January and February, followed by a resumption of periodic storms. More rarely this midwinter time can be one of frequent but light rain, with some rain falling every day for up to a month.

Photo was taken from the window of a Southwest Airlines plane departing from Oakland Airport at 11:30AM on July 22, 2004 by Aran Johnson.

Originaly uploaded to English Wikipedia by Konky2000 (19/08/2004) as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:San_Francisco_aerial_summer.jpg

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