The Castella 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.
Showers likely
Showers likely
Chance of showers
Showers likely
Showers likely
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
80° on Nov. 13, 1995, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1978. Next is 75° in 2008.
Castella’s center stands about 2,170 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,050 ft to 5,320 ft, a difference of 3,270 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Green Butte, about 9,220 ft, 14 miles north-northeast.
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 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Peridotite. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Mudstone, volcanic. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 273 to 359 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Mafic-volcanic. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Diorite. Age: Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, 100 to 202 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone-mudstone, mudstone. Age: Middle Triassic to Late Triassic, 202 to 247 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Diorite, gabbro. Age: Early Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 455 to 480 million years old. About 2 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 Castella reaches San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean by way of the Sacramento: about 360 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Castella; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Castella has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. A normal year brings about 27 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 63 inches of water.
On November 14 Castella normally reaches 57° and falls to 34°. The record high is 78°, in 1995; the record low 20°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 2.74 in, fell in 1981.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1978 at Dunsmuir Treatment Pl, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
