The Redwood City 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.
3.29 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1906. The next wettest, 3.22 inches, fell in 1981.
Redwood City’s center stands about 30 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 770 ft, a difference of 770 ft: hilly country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Black Mountain, about 2,810 ft, 13 miles south-southeast.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 9×. 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 4 mi of the line.
Mudstone, sandstone. Age: Paleocene to Oligocene, 23 to 66 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Serpentinite. Age: Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 175 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Eocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 56 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. 4 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.
Rain that falls on Redwood City runs straight into San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Redwood City; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Redwood City has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 40° in January. About 19 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Redwood City normally reaches 65° and falls to 44°. The record high is 79°, in 2010; the record low 29°, in 1935. The most rain on this date, 1.72 in, fell in 1953.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1906 at Redwood City, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.