The Goleta 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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5.32 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1941. The next wettest, 3.38 inches, fell in 1952.
Goleta’s center stands about 30 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 630 ft, a difference of 630 ft: hilly country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Little Pine Mountain, about 4,470 ft, 12 miles north-northeast.
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 7 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, sandstone. Age: Paleocene to Oligocene, 23 to 66 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Oligocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 34 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Middle Eocene to Early Miocene, 16 to 48 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Siltstone-mudstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 113 to 145 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Jurassic to Cretaceous, 66 to 202 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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 Goleta reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Tecolotito Creek: about 3 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Goleta; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Goleta has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 74° in August; winter nights fall to about 40° in December. About 17 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Goleta normally reaches 70° and falls to 44°. The record high is 86°, in 1949; the record low 34°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 2.42 in, fell in 2025.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1941 at Santa Barbara Municipal Airport, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
