The Loleta 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.
3.75 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1886. The next wettest, 3.59 inches, fell in 1900.
Loleta’s center stands about 70 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 730 ft, a difference of 730 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bunker Hill, about 2,450 ft, 11 miles south-southwest.
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 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 8×. 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 to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous to Pliocene, 2.6 to 100 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Oligocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 34 million years old. About 0.5 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 Loleta reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Hawk Slough and the Eel: about 6 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Loleta; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Loleta has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 64° in August; winter nights fall to about 40° in December. About 40 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Loleta normally reaches 58° and falls to 44°. The record high is 71°, in 1970; the record low 31°, in 1978. The most rain on this date, 2.42 in, fell in 1934.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1886 from the Eureka Area threaded record (Eureka Wfo Woodley Island, 12 miles north-northeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.