The McCloud 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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6.65 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1909. The next wettest, 5.40 inches, fell in 1920.
McCloud’s center stands about 3,260 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,960 ft to 4,440 ft, a difference of 1,480 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Shasta, about 14,110 ft, 11 miles north-northwest.
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 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 2×. 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 6 mi of the line.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Mudstone, volcanic. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 273 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Dacite, andesite. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone-mudstone, mudstone. Age: Middle Triassic to Late Triassic, 202 to 247 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, 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. 3 smaller units 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 McCloud reaches San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean by way of Squaw Valley Creek, the McCloud, the Pit and the Sacramento: about 360 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of McCloud; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
McCloud has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. About 50 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 McCloud normally reaches 56° and falls to 28°. The record high is 77°, in 1995; the record low 14°, in 1978. The most rain on this date, 2.91 in, fell in 1965.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1909 at Mccloud, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
