The Isla Vista 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.
Isla Vista’s center stands about 50 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 350 ft, a difference of 350 ft: rolling country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Little Pine Mountain, about 4,470 ft, 15 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Older Quaternary alluvium and marine deposits (coarse-detrital), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 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.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Middle Eocene to Early Miocene, 16 to 48 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Mudstone, sandstone. Age: Paleocene to Oligocene, 23 to 66 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Eocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 56 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Oligocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 34 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.3 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.
Rain that falls on Isla Vista runs straight into the Pacific Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Isla Vista; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Isla Vista 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 Isla Vista 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.
