Maybe Fleemo was referring to the California Energy Commission's 16
climate zones which, like Sunset's zones, are based on "temperature,
weather and other factors", but have no numerical coorelation to
Sunset's zones. Used primarily to predict and track electrical power
consumption for specific geographical areas. -Olin

Indeed, I was. So this has little connection to gardening? When
folks discuss zones in this newsgroup, are they referring to the
Sunset Western Garden book's definition of zones? Or are there other
zone definitions to take into consideration?