The Buttonwillow 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.
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Showers likely; cooler
Sunny
Showers likely
Showers likely
Mostly sunny
87° on Nov. 11, 1973, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1940. Next is 86° in 2016.
Buttonwillow’s center stands about 270 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 260 ft to 310 ft, a difference of 50 ft: nearly flat ground. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Hillcrest Point, about 1,530 ft, 8 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Quaternary alluvium and marine deposits (coarse-detrital), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 16×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old. About 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.
Buttonwillow has a hot desert climate. Summer afternoons average 98° in July; winter nights fall to about 36° in December. About 6 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Buttonwillow normally reaches 68° and falls to 41°. The record high is 82°, in 1990; the record low 30°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 0.39 in, fell in 1953.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1940 at Buttonwillow, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
