The French Gulch 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.
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81° on Nov. 12, 2019, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1960. Next is 80° in 1995.
French Gulch’s center stands about 1,360 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,310 ft to 3,600 ft, a difference of 2,290 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bully Choop Mountain, about 6,910 ft, 12 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Carboniferous marine rocks, unit 4 (Eastern Klamath Mountains) (mudstone, volcanic), from the Carboniferous to Permian, 273 to 359 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 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.
Mudstone, volcanic. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 273 to 359 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Diorite. Age: Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, 100 to 202 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Mafic-volcanic. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 0.6 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 French Gulch reaches San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean by way of Clear Creek and the Sacramento: about 320 river miles.
Lake on the way: Whiskeytown Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of French Gulch; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
French Gulch has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 99° in July; winter nights fall to about 39° in January. About 63 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 French Gulch normally reaches 62° and falls to 44°. The record high is 80°, in 1995; the record low 28°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 3.25 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1960 at Whiskeytown Reservoir, 8 miles southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
