The Corralitos 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
Showers likely
Showers likely
Mostly sunny
88° on Nov. 15, 2008, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1945. Next is 84° in 2005.
Corralitos’s center stands about 280 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 130 ft to 1,390 ft, a difference of 1,260 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Loma Prieta, about 3,780 ft, 9 miles north-northwest.
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 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. 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, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Greenstone. Age: Jurassic to Cretaceous, 66 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone-mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mudstone, sandstone. Age: Paleocene to Oligocene, 23 to 66 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. 4 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 Corralitos reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Salsipuedes Creek and the Pajaro: about 14 river miles.
Often dry. About 50% 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 Corralitos; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Corralitos has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 75° in September; winter nights fall to about 39° in December. About 22 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1945 at Watsonville Municipal Airport, 4 miles south-southeast, 120 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
