The Atascadero plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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89° on Nov. 17, 2008, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1894. Next is 89° in 2025.
Atascadero’s center stands about 890 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 790 ft to 1,510 ft, a difference of 720 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Lopez Mountain, about 2,860 ft, 14 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Miocene marine rocks (sandstone, mudstone), from the Oligocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 34 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 9×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Jurassic to Cretaceous, 66 to 202 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Oligocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 34 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone-mudstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 113 to 145 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone-mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 smaller units along the line are not listed.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Atascadero reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Atascadero Creek and the Salinas: about 140 river miles.
Often dry. About 80% of the way is mapped as streams that run only after rain or snowmelt; the water makes the whole trip in floods.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Atascadero; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Atascadero has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in August; winter nights fall to about 32° in December. About 15 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Atascadero normally reaches 70° and falls to 37°. The record high is 86°, in 2019; the record low 16°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 2.21 in, fell in 1953.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1894 at Paso Robles, 10 miles north, 160 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
