The Chualar 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
Showers likely
Showers likely
Mostly sunny
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Partly cloudy
25° on Nov. 12, 1938, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1930. Next is 29° in 1931.
Chualar’s center stands about 140 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 70 ft to 380 ft, a difference of 310 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Palo Escrito Peak, about 4,450 ft, 12 miles south.
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 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 5×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Schist, gneiss. Age: Paleoproterozoic to Cretaceous, 66 to 2,500 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, quartz-monzonite. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone, marble. Age: Paleozoic to Mesozoic, 66 to 542 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 Chualar reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Chualar Creek and the Salinas: about 30 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 Chualar; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Chualar has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 74° in September; winter nights fall to about 40° in December. About 13 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Chualar normally reaches 68° and falls to 45°. The record high is 86°, in 2021; the record low 30°, in 1935. The most rain on this date, 0.81 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1930 at Salinas Airport, 8 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
