The Bonita 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Showers likely
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Chance of showers
92° on Nov. 13, 1974, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1918. Next is 90° in 1949.
Bonita’s center stands about 150 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 40 ft to 560 ft, a difference of 520 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Otay Mountain, about 3,520 ft, 12 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Eocene nonmarine rocks, unit 2 (Southern California) (conglomerate, sandstone), from the Middle Eocene to Late Eocene, 34 to 48 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. 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, mudstone. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Felsic-volcanic, mafic-volcanic. Age: Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, 100 to 164 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Middle Eocene to Late Eocene, 34 to 48 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Oligocene to Pleistocene, less than 34 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
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 Bonita reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the Sweetwater: about 7 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bonita; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bonita has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in August; winter nights fall to about 46° in January. About 9 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Bonita normally reaches 72° and falls to 51°. The record high is 90°, in 1949; the record low 38°, in 1935. The most rain on this date, 1.31 in, fell in 1946.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1918 at Chula Vista, 3 miles west-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
