The Yosemite West 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; warmer
Showers likely; cooler
Mostly sunny
Showers likely
Showers likely
Chance of showers
7° on Nov. 12, 1985, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1941. Next is 9° in 1958.
Yosemite West’s center stands about 5,950 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,750 ft to 7,370 ft, a difference of 4,620 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Bruce, about 9,690 ft, 13 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mesozoic granitic rocks, unit 3 (Sierra Nevada, Death Valley area, Northern Mojave Desert and Transverse Ranges) (granodiorite), from the Permian to Tertiary, 2.6 to 260 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 3×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granodiorite. Age: Permian to Tertiary, 2.6 to 260 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Argillite, quartzite, phyllite. Age: Ordovician to Triassic, 202 to 487 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 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.
A raindrop that lands in Yosemite West reaches San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean by way of Indian Creek, the Merced, the San Joaquin and New York Slough: about 230 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake McClure.
120 miles of the trip are on the San Joaquin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Yosemite West; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Yosemite West has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in February. About 37 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Yosemite West normally reaches 53° and falls to 31°. The record high is 72°, in 2025; the record low 11°, in 1964. The most rain on this date, 6.12 in, fell in 1981.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1941 at So Entrance Yosemite N.P., 10 miles south-southeast, 900 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
