It's funny hearing people from different parts of the state talk about SF being Northern CA... it's 8 hours from the northern border.
I grew up in New England and moved about 2 hours south of Oregon 10 years ago. Never spent time in LA/SD, decent amount of time in the Bay area. Mostly just been in this nook of north coast paradise. Where I live isn't indicative of CA as a whole, but with the state being so vast, I don't think that anywhere is necessarily representative of anywhere else.
I see a greater abundance of decent/really nice concrete parks. Where I live, street skating is fairly non-existent. There are endless awesome parking lots with painted red curbs.
The curb game is unparalleled compared to the east coast. Due to the general lack of snow and subsequent lack of salt on the roads, pavement is generally better than anywhere I've lived on the beast coast. Buildings in california, shit you might want to skate, is generally newer- fewer foundation spots and shit like that.
It's rarely gets warmer than 70 where I'm at on the coast and it rarely gets lower than freezing, and then only for a few days or at night. It's wet though. Even when it's dry and we're in drought, it's always wet.
Getting back into the skate world after a hiatus for the last 7 or so years has been pretty low key. It's not weird for a grey hair later 30s dude with mad tattoos to be skating and throwing tantrums in a parking lot. Old ladies walking their dogs talk to me like a respected community member.
That said, this is the only place in CA that I have any interest in living. All the homies I've met from down south, from what they describe, the suburban sprawl, the speed of things, as well as the high cost of living, I'm all set regardless of weather and year round skate time. I'll be moving to upstate NY or VT before I live in SoCal
I think that skateboarding, as an image thing anyways, is more prevalent and accepted in CA too, but I'm not totally sold on there being more older dudes still skating. Whenever I get back east and hit a park, I'm seeing more dudes my age and up pushing around parks and shit.