San Luis Obispo Region
San Luis Obispo County (Click on icon below
to view a map of the County)
When California was admitted to the United States in
1850, San Luis Obispo County was one of the original counties.
It lies about equidistant ( 200 miles) between between
Los Angeles and San Francisco and stretches from the Pacific
Ocean as its western boundary to about 90 miles east abutting
Kern County in the San Joaquin Valley . The region is commonly
known as 
the Central Coast area of California. With only about
240,00 inhabitants, the county is as yet relatively uncluttered
since its economic base is still comprised of agriculture with
government services, tourism and recreation also being employment
contributors. The largest private industrial employer is
Pacific Gas and Electric's Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant
situated at a secluded area on the coast between Morro Bay and
Avila Beach. The large majority of the inhabitants live in the
western part of the county near the coast and along the Interstate
101 corridor which traverses the county from north to south. The
eastern part of the county is sparsely populated.
The populated part of the county broadly divides itself
into four major areas:
(1) the North Coast area
which follows the scenic California Route 1 through the
towns of Morro Bay, Cayucos and Cambria to the famed Hearst Castle
at San Simeon to the north;
(2) the rural and agricultural
North County which is above the Cuesta Mountain escarpment
where Paso Robles and Atascadero are the principal population
centers;
(3) the San Luis Obispo
area which is about the center of the north/south population
corridor with the city of San Luis Obispo being the county's
largest;
(4) and the South County
which stretches along I-101 from Pismo Beach to Nipomo
on the southern edge of the county.
City of San Luis Obispo
The city now with a population of about 46,500 is
the county seat and the largest and most important city of San
Luis Obispo County . It has the great majority of all city,
county, state and federal government services and is the home of
California State Polytechnic University (Cal Poly) with its 16,000
students situated on 6000 acres and the active Roman Catholic Mission
San
Luis Obispo de Tolosa dating back to 1772 from which
the town derives its name. With the construction of the narrow gauge
Pacific Coast Railway in the 1850s to bring ocean freight from Port
San Luis (Avila Beach) to the city and the completion of the coast
route of the Southern Pacific Railroad from Los Angeles through San
Luis Obispo to San Francisco in 1896, the city was and still is an important
rail center with freight and passenger traffic being a significant form
of its transportation infrastructure. A major attraction to the
area is not only the small town atmosphere with its SLOwer pace, growing
cultural endowments and lack of congestion but a climate of consistently
moderate temperatures and humidity throughout the entire year.
The Edna Valley and San Luis Obispo County Wine Production
Within the last decade San Luis Obispo County has become
the second most important premium wine producing region of
California with a great amount of its arable agricultural land
having been converted to vineyards. While the major production
of wine (mostly Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Zinfandel) is centered
in the North county area (Paso Robles), the Edna Valley 
which stretches from the south of San Luis Obispo southeast
to Arroyo Grande has become a producer of outstanding Chardonney,
Pinot Noir, Syrah, Grenache and white Rhone varietals because of
its more temperate climate. With wine grape production skyrocketing,
wineries have mushroomed throughout the area from corporate producers
such as Kendall-Jackson and Meridian to a host of locally owned "boutique"
wineries whose production usually does not leave the area. As
a result, grape and wine production has become an important
economic driver of the County not only for its own value but from
the tourism it has created.
The Country Club Area
In the late 1950s a group of enterprising local people decided
it was time the locale had a private golf club and proceeded to purchase
about 400 acres of dry farm land on the west side of the Edna Valley about
8 miles southeast of the center of San Luis Obispo after which adequate
well water was discovered sufficent to irrigate a golf course. The
golf course and clubhouse was completed in 1959 and the vacant surrounding
land was leased out for farming. This enterprise struggled over the
next 25 years and finally became viable when a California land boom
in the mid 1980s allowed the Club to sell off its excess land for the
development of a gated community of 230 custom home sites. By
2000 the development was virtually completed and is now totally surrounded
either by golf course or vineyards.
The Weather Station
The equipment producing this weather data is a Davis Instruments'
Vantage Pro Plus Wireless weather station with the
Intergrated Sensor Suite which transmits the data mounted on a 15
foot pole in my backyard in the Country Club development which is about 250
feet above sea level( see picture). The receiving Console is located
inside the house and it transmits the relevant data to a PC in which
Davis' Weatherlink software has been installed. This software provides
for various graphical displays of current and historical weather data as
well as incorporating the capability of uploading this information via
a built-in FTP client to this web site which was developed using both
the WeatherLink software and Netscape Composer HTML editor.
If you have any questions, comments
or suggestions I would enjoy hearing from you.
Luis Obispo de Tolosa dating back to 1772 from which
the town derives its name. With the construction of the narrow gauge
Pacific Coast Railway in the 1850s to bring ocean freight from Port
San Luis (Avila Beach) to the city and the completion of the coast
route of the Southern Pacific Railroad from Los Angeles through San
Luis Obispo to San Francisco in 1896, the city was and still is an important
rail center with freight and passenger traffic being a significant form
of its transportation infrastructure. A major attraction to the
area is not only the small town atmosphere with its SLOwer pace, growing
cultural endowments and lack of congestion but a climate of consistently
moderate temperatures and humidity throughout the entire year.
which stretches from the south of San Luis Obispo southeast
to Arroyo Grande has become a producer of outstanding Chardonney,
Pinot Noir, Syrah, Grenache and white Rhone varietals because of
its more temperate climate. With wine grape production skyrocketing,
wineries have mushroomed throughout the area from corporate producers
such as Kendall-Jackson and Meridian to a host of locally owned "boutique"
wineries whose production usually does not leave the area. As
a result, grape and wine production has become an important
economic driver of the County not only for its own value but from
the tourism it has created. 
Intergrated Sensor Suite which transmits the data mounted on a 15
foot pole in my backyard in the Country Club development which is about 250
feet above sea level( see picture). The receiving Console is located
inside the house and it transmits the relevant data to a PC in which
Davis' Weatherlink software has been installed. This software provides
for various graphical displays of current and historical weather data as
well as incorporating the capability of uploading this information via
a built-in FTP client to this web site which was developed using both
the WeatherLink software and Netscape Composer HTML editor.