The Trinidad 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.
Chance of showers
Showers likely
Showers likely
Showers likely
Showers likely
Chance of showers
Mostly cloudy
78° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1945. Next is 74° in 2018.
Trinidad’s center stands about 60 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 1,260 ft, a difference of 1,260 ft: steep hill country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Hooker Mountain, about 3,140 ft, 15 miles east-northeast.
The section below crosses 2 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.
Mica-schist. Age: Early Cretaceous, 110 to 143 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Jurassic to Cretaceous, 66 to 202 million years old. About 5 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 Trinidad runs straight into the Pacific Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Trinidad; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Trinidad has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 65° in September; winter nights fall to about 40° in December. About 46 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Trinidad normally reaches 59° and falls to 42°. The record high is 67°, in 2001; the record low 29°, in 1993. The most rain on this date, 0.59 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1945 at Arcata Eureka Airport, 6 miles south-southeast, 150 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
