The Capitola 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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22° on Nov. 16, 1940, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1892. Next is 22° in 1969.
Capitola’s center stands about 80 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 50 ft to 190 ft, a difference of 140 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Texas Hill, about 280 ft, 15 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Hawthorn Group, Torreya Formation (sandstone, limestone), from the Middle Miocene, 12 to 16 million years old.
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 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand, clay, gravel. Age: Late Pliocene, 2.6 to 3.6 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone. Age: Middle Miocene, 12 to 16 million years old. About 10 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 Capitola reaches the Gulf of America by way of Burnt Mill Creek and the Saint Marks: about 30 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Capitola; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Capitola has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 40° in January. About 59 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Capitola normally reaches 73° and falls to 48°. The record high is 85°, in 2005; the record low 26°, in 1977. The most rain on this date, 2.99 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1892 from the Tallahassee Area threaded record (Tallahassee Regional Airport, 16 miles west-southwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
