We recently got some snow in the hills a bit above our elevation.
Going through the Santa Maria Valley I was able to take a photo, but it did not show the snow too well.
You can see the farm machinery harvesting lettuce… this is the day before the rains started here… they wanted to get all they could out of the field before it turned to mud.
This is in the bottom of the canyon… this particular spot doesn’t get any sun for a couple of months in the middle of winter.
So when the grasses freeze, it can stay like this for several weeks.
Micro-climates are when a particular area has a weather climate that is different than the prevailing overall conditions. In this case the particulars of airflow, elevation, air drainage, the nearby flowing stream, and lack of any direct sunshine for a couple of months leads to this particular spot having a radically different climate than where we raise the cactus a mile away which is on a south-facing hillside nearly a thousand feet above the canyon bottom.