The Rio del Mar 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.
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Showers likely
Mostly sunny
Showers likely
Showers likely
Partly cloudy
88° on Nov. 15, 2008, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1945. Next is 84° in 2005.
Rio del Mar’s center stands about 150 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 720 ft, a difference of 720 ft: hilly country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Loma Prieta, about 3,780 ft, 10 miles north-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 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. 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: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 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.
Sandstone, siltstone-mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mudstone, sandstone. Age: Paleocene to Oligocene, 23 to 66 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Oligocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 34 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. 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.
Rain that falls on Rio del Mar runs straight into the Pacific Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rio del Mar; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rio del Mar has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 75° in September; winter nights fall to about 39° in December. About 22 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1945 at Watsonville Municipal Airport, 6 miles east-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
