Santa Rosa , CA Local Area Information

Santa Rosa is the county seat of Sonoma County, California, United States. The 2010 census reported a population of 167,815. Santa Rosa is the largest city in California's Wine Country and fifth largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area, after San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, and Fremont and 26th largest city in California. The first known permanent European settlement of Santa Rosa was the homestead of the Carrillo family, in-laws to Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, who settled the Sonoma pueblo and Petaluma area. In the 1830s, during the Mexican period, the family of Mar�­a L�³pez de Carrillo built an adobe house on their Rancho Cabeza de Santa Rosa land grant, just east of what later became downtown Santa Rosa. The April 18, 1906 San Francisco Earthquake essentially destroyed the entire downtown, but the city's population did not greatly suffer. However, after that period the population growth of Santa Rosa, as with most of the area, was very slow. Famed director Alfred Hitchcock filmed his thriller Shadow of a Doubt in Santa Rosa in 1943; the film, which has been released on VHS and DVD, gives glimpses of Santa Rosa in the 1940s. Many of the downtown buildings seen in the film no longer exist, due to major reconstruction following the strong earthquakes in September 1969. However, some, like the rough-stone Northwestern Pacific Railroad depot and the prominent Empire Building (built in 1910 with a gold-topped clock tower), still survive. A scene at the bank was filmed at the corner of Fourth St and Mendocino Ave (at present day Old Courthouse square); sharp-eyed viewers can identify the "KRESS" building on Fourth St, however, the courthouse and bank are gone. Santa Rosa has cool, wet winters and warm, mostly dry summers. In the summer, fog and low overcast often moves in from the Pacific Ocean during the evenings and mornings. It usually clears to warm, sunny weather by late morning or noon before returning in the later evening but will occasionally linger all day. Average annual rainfall is 30.45 inches (773 mm), falling on 74 days annually. The wettest year was 1983 with 63.07 inches (1,602 mm) and the driest year was 1976 with 11.38 inches (289 mm). The most rainfall in one month was 19.42 inches (493 mm) in February 1998 and the most rainfall in 24 hours was 5.23 inches (133 mm) on December 19, 1981. Measurable snowfall is rare in the lowlands, but light amounts sometimes fall in the nearby mountains.