Funny how you never see the fog in Hollywood movies on San F

And, um, when you say FOGGY, do you mean, "Jim, I can't see my fingers in front of my face?" or more like, "There is a mist about your person?"

I'm worried that the weather conditions might not be as good as I thought it was (grrr Hollywood for misleading me). Most of the action in the book happens at night, though, so maybe by then things will have cleared up and it will merely be a little chilly and a little misty?

Probably because fog is an impossible to control factor in filming. And it depends. Sometimes, it's just a generic fog around the whole city, other times visibility is down to about a thousand feet. If it helps, the fog is usually an early morning thing, burning off as the sun rises, though it can last for a while. So, it's not tule fog bad, but it can be VERY bad. We only get it a few times a year down here in Redwood City, so I've got some experience with it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_fog
Here, have some cool pictures.

I actually have been in a fog almost bad enough to not be able to see too far in front of me. The problem was that I was on the freeway. Not a pleasant experience to basically see a big lump of fog then FOOMP everything's white and you can't see a thousand feet in front of you.

Grrrrr. F*cking grrrr. I had this whole big thing written up here, and then my browser decided to play the Spinny Loading Icon game and I had to restart it, and I lost it all. Note to self for future endeavors: try copying posts every paragraph or so.

Okay, let me try again, though it probably won't be as long. I am not a San Francisco native: I was born and raised about twenty-five miles south, in a place called Redwood City. I'm not all that familiar with the city, nor am I entirely comfortable with it. I guess it's a bit like a fairy: very interesting and attractive and mysterious, but an undercurrent of danger and secrets and not all that pleasant things. Like most cities, it's got roughly two sides to it, and like a lot of other cities, there's no real defining line: the gritty stuff flows around the pretty stuff, so you're not gonna get far from it. Which really works for a supernatural story/setting. There's lots of locations you can do stuff in or have stuff set there. Golden Gate Park is REALLY high on my list of recommended locations: lots of areas to hide secret meetings and even a fairy court or two. Also, there are a LOT of areas with lots of overpasses and highways splitting and rejoining: lots of shadowy places for dark things like trolls to hide.

General notes: google maps and google street view are truly your friends. If Jim Butcher had had that when he'd gotten started on The Dresden Files, he'd get a few less light-hearted ribbings from fans. :p But it's very useful for planning routes and chase sequences. Wikipedia is another great source of information, so you can learn about famous districts, streets, and the history of the place. Even just googling stuff like "magic shops in san francisco" will get you some good results, though I'd recommend playing around with names a bit to avoid getting into trouble.

Other people have touched on the fog, but it's really worth bringing up: Frisco is FOGGY. We're famous for it, and for a fantasy/science fiction story it helps create an air of monsters hiding in the fog. Even in summer, it's cool and windy. In winter, it's wet and miserable. If you've got the sun, then it can get hot, but San Francisco is right at the end of the peninsula, jutting into the passageway between the ocean and the bay, creating some fun weather conditions. It's also hilly: from certain areas, you can see almost the whole city, while from others, you can't see anything besides huge skyscrapers and roads. Lots of roads. Though there are always trees, the smaller kind you get in cities that are planted regularly along the street.

The area around San Francisco - the Bay Area - is just as varied as San Francisco, and there's a lot of areas there for someone to get away to for an adventure or two, though relying on fast travel between any of these areas is silly at best. Traffic can get bad in San Francisco. I think the worst I've ever experienced was about an hour or so to go ten miles, and I just needed to drive across a highway running over San Francisco. So, hard to get around, but relatively easy to go to another location to expand your view. And of course, once you leave the San Francisco area, you've got Wine Country to the north, mountains to the east (eventually), Monterrey Bay to the south… there's a lot here. Also, the San Andreas fault is a great location for a ley line (I live about three miles away from the fault line, seriously)… oh wait, sorry, you're doing a science fiction story. Um… lots of wooded areas within about fifty miles of San Francisco to hide stuff in. Heck, Angel Island might be a good place for an alien landing site, and it's just across the bay from the city.

As for your questions… sorry, I'm not so hot on locations. I can do a bit of thinking and come up with some stuff for ya, if you'd want.

Man, all of this stuff is making me want to set an urban fantasy book in San Francisco. Where was Elaine working out of again? I can't remember.

San Francisco

I'm gonna quote you here, because I completely missed him the last time he was anywhere near me. Really, anywhere on the San Francisco peninsula is good, but unfortunately that Borders he appeared at a few years ago has closed.