The Lake Sherwood 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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4.43 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1949. The next wettest, 3.50 inches, fell in 2025.
Lake Sherwood’s center stands about 1,050 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 850 ft to 2,690 ft, a difference of 1,840 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sandstone Peak, about 3,020 ft, 3 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Tertiary volcanic flow rocks, unit 8 (Southern California Basin) (basalt, andesite), from the Late Oligocene to Late Miocene, 8 to 25 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 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.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Oligocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 34 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Basalt, andesite. Age: Late Oligocene to Late Miocene, 8 to 25 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 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 Lake Sherwood reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Potrero Valley Creek and Malibu Creek: about 20 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 Lake Sherwood; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lake Sherwood has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 98° in August; winter nights fall to about 42° in December. About 16 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Lake Sherwood normally reaches 77° and falls to 46°. The record high is 96°, in 2021; the record low 25°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 1.10 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1949 at Woodland Hills Pierce College, 18 miles east, 260 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
