The Monterey 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.
Mostly sunny
Showers likely
Showers likely
Mostly sunny
Showers likely
Showers likely
Mostly sunny
87° on Nov. 15, 2008, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1906. Next is 83° in 1949.
Monterey’s center stands about 40 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 10 ft to 840 ft, a difference of 830 ft: hilly country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Twin Peaks, about 3,610 ft, 14 miles south-southeast.
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 4 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.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Oligocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 34 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, quartz-monzonite. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 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 Monterey runs straight into the Pacific Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Monterey; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Monterey has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 71° in September; winter nights fall to about 44° in December. About 20 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Monterey normally reaches 65° and falls to 48°. The record high is 81°, in 1949; the record low 36°, in 1994. The most rain on this date, 1.48 in, fell in 1953.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1906 at Monterey, 2 miles east-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
