ONe of the hotels I'm looking at for our trip to SF end of July is not air conditioned. Do you think this will be a problem in July? If its always cool at night, this will be fine with us. (The hotel is the Beresford Arms)

IMO, A/C is not needed. In fact, bring a jacket!! SF can get chilly with the fog rolling in. Your room may get stuffy, but there are possibly ceiling fans or windows you can open.

casanic, don't be surprised if the fog comes rolling in while you are in SF. You will not need a/c. As laurenzo said, do bring a jacket. I always need to wear one during the summer months in SF once the sun starts to go down.

The weather can be pleasant in San Francisco, but it was so cold there last August that we cut our visit two days short and headed for sunsine.

However, if your room faces the street and you have to have your windows open it may be too noisy to sleep.

We lived in SF for 6 months and the place is strange the way it has its own natural A/C.--- Then you can cross the Bay Bridge and it may be 100. Drive a little more to the east, get into the mountains and you may be standing in snow up to your knees. We have done this, all in one day..

Yep - SF and much of the pacific coast has natural AC

If the temperatures get above 80F in SF, it is considered a heat wave. The average high is only 71F and the average low is 55F.

Mark Twain once said" the coldest winter I ever had was a summer in San Francisco"
I was there in July and saw women wearing fur jackets at the Top of the Mark.

When I lived in San Francisco in the late 70s and 80's, my heating nbill in July was 20% of my rent payment.

Yes, heat bill.

The offshore water temperature is always cold... and the air temp near the coast can be cold enough to require a coat... actually icy... in contrast to the inland valley where the air temp can go beyond 100 Fahrenheit... the hills and mountains between the Aay Area and the valley usually separate these two air masses. The Sacramento river valley is a passageway between hot air and cold air... and they constantly collide and produce fog.

You might want to consider the Executive Vintage Court or Chancellor Hot. We were just at both on way to/from China.
I was as cold as I have ever been in SF in Sept 1975.
M

casanic, I live in the Sacramento Valley. It can often be at least 100 degrees (and I am sad to say often hotter). I escape to SF and it will be about 70 degrees. Except for one time last year when SF had an unusual heat spell but even then it was cool compared to my city. Pack so you can dress in layers. Honestly, I have never needed a/c in SF. And I have never known anyone, family or friends, that live in SF that had a/c.

I'm 50 miles south of San Francisco near the San Jose/ Los Gatos border. Temps over 90 in the summer are common. But in the city, you won't need the a/c. ;-)

Weather in July for San Francisco is usually cool. Heat waves do sometimes hit, but the nights usually cool down.

Dear casanic,
I normally would preface my reply to a weather-related question such as yours with "well, in a normal year..." However, a "normal" year is getting rarer all the while - must be global warming or whatever.
Anyway, I would not obsess about A/C in San Francisco. I would bet that 90% of all residential property does not have it. A "typical" July day in San Francisco has fog at breakfast, sun at lunch and fog at dinner. You can pretty much depend on the wind picking up at about 4 or 5 in the afternoon. If you are west of Twin Peaks, it might be grey all day long. Make sure to look eastward on Market Street and see the fog spilling over Twin Peaks in the early evening - it's spectacular, looks like huge billows of smoke pouring through the "cleavage" of the hills (they ARE the "twin peaks", you know). I would take the advice of the poster above and get a fairly high floor - the Beresford is on a busy street, and if you wanted to keep the window cracked open at night, the noise would not be so bothersome.