The Richvale 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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85° on Nov. 11, 1930, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1906. Next is 85° in 1932.
Richvale’s center stands about 100 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 90 ft to 120 ft, a difference of 30 ft: nearly flat ground. The highest named summit within 15 miles is North Table Mountain, about 1,570 ft, 15 miles northeast.
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 18×. 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 16 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Early Miocene to Middle Miocene, 14 to 16 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Mafic-volcanic. Age: Jurassic, 145 to 202 million years old. About 0.4 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.
Richvale has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 95° in July; winter nights fall to about 36° in January. About 27 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Richvale normally reaches 65° and falls to 40°. The record high is 80°, in 2025; the record low 26°, in 1994. The most rain on this date, 1.37 in, fell in 1953.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1906 at Chico University Farm, 14 miles north-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
