The University of California-Merced 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
Chance of showers
Showers likely; cooler
Sunny
Showers likely
Showers likely
Partly cloudy
22° on Nov. 15, 1905, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1899. Next is 24° in 1938.
University of California-Merced’s center stands about 230 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 180 ft to 420 ft, a difference of 240 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Santa Cruz Mountain, about 1,490 ft, 13 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Plio-Pleistocene and Pliocene loosely consolidated deposits (sandstone, conglomerate), from the Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 22×. 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, conglomerate. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Oligocene to Pleistocene, less than 34 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mafic-volcanic. Age: Jurassic, 145 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Eocene, 34 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. 2 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.
A raindrop that lands in University of California-Merced reaches San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean by way of Bear Creek, the San Joaquin and New York Slough: about 170 river miles.
130 miles of the trip are on the San Joaquin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of University of California-Merced; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
University of California-Merced has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 96° in July; winter nights fall to about 36° in December. About 12 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 University of California-Merced normally reaches 67° and falls to 41°. The record high is 81°, in 1933; the record low 25°, in 1938. The most rain on this date, 1.57 in, fell in 1953.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1899 from the Merced Area threaded record (Merced Municipal Airport, 8 miles southwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
