San Francisco — the city where Mark Twain allegedly said the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer — has logged 13 days at or above 75°F between February and May of this year. That's more than double the average of the previous four years (which hovered around 4–6 days each) and comfortably surpasses even 2021's 10-day outlier. We're not talking Phoenix numbers here, but for a city where many residents don't even own air conditioning, the pattern is striking.

And it's not just the heat. The dry conditions accompanying these warm spells have turned the Bay Area into an allergy hellscape. Residents are reporting brutal symptoms the moment they step outside — watery eyes, sinus pressure, nosebleeds, the works. As one Bay Area resident put it, "Whatever it is that I'm allergic to out here has been absolutely brutal this year, and the crazy winds these last few days hasn't helped. I'm okay indoors but the second I step outside it's awful."

The coping strategies making the rounds sound like a prepper's medicine cabinet: Zyrtec, Flonase, saline nasal rinses, Vaseline-lined nostrils, and — in a delightful callback — dusting off those leftover COVID masks for outdoor use. One local even recommended pseudoephedrine as "the only OTC drug that works," noting that everything else is just "shelfloads of hopium with a big advertising budget." Hard to argue.

Now, before anyone fires up the climate policy bat signal: weird weather years happen. But the data is the data. Thirteen-plus days of 75°F-and-above weather before June is genuinely unusual for this city, and residents are feeling it — literally, in their nasal cavities.

The real question for San Franciscans isn't ideological. It's practical. If this dry, warm pattern is becoming more common, maybe it's time the city stopped pretending everyone can get by with a foggy breeze and a fleece jacket. Encouraging residents to invest in air purifiers, stock antihistamines, and actually prepare for warm, dry stretches isn't alarmism — it's common sense. The best government response to changing conditions is usually getting out of the way and letting people adapt.

Stay hydrated. Rinse those sinuses. And maybe finally buy that window unit.