the city boundary, these streams flow mainly through the Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest. The creek flows through the city to meet Bear Creek, which roughly parallels I-5 along the east side of Ashland. Bear Creek, one of many streams in the Rogue Valley, flows generally northwest to join the Rogue River near Gold Hill, and from there the river flows generally west to its mouth on the Pacific Ocean. Oregon Route 99, running roughly parallel to I-5, passes through downtown Ashland. Oregon Route 66 enters Ashland from the east and intersects Route 99 near the city center. Route 66 leads east to Klamath Falls. Climate Ashland lies within Oregon's southwest interior climate zone, in which all but the higher-elevation sites are in the rain shadow of the Oregon Coast Range to the west. The largest urban areas in this zone in addition to Ashland are Medford and Grants Pass in the Rogue Valley, and Roseburg in the Umpqua River Valley further north. Although the mountain peaks in this zone receive up to of precipitation a year, the urban areas and the valleys in which they lie generally get or less. This valley climate is particularly good for growing fruit, especially pears, and for producing other crops and farm goods such as hay, grain, poultry, and beef. Cloud cover in nearby Medford varies from an average of 21 percent in July to 86 percent in December. On average, precipitation falls in Ashland on 114 days each year and totals about . The average annual snowfall is only . The average relative humidity, measured at 4 p.m. daily, is 47 percent in Medford, varying from 26 percent in July to 76 percent in December. According to the Köppen climate classification system, Ashland has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb). The coolest month is December, with an average high temperature of , and the warmest month is July, with an average high of about . The highest temperature ever recorded in Ashland was , observed in August 1981, and the record low of occurred in December 1972. The wettest "rain year" has been from July 1926 to June 1927 with and the driest from July 1954 to June 1955 with only . The wettest month on record has been December 1964 with , but the only other months with over have been December 1996 with , November 1903 with and November 1998 with .