The Chico 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; cooler
Partly cloudy
Sunny; warmer
Chance of showers
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
90° on Nov. 15, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1897. Next is 89° in 1911.
Chico’s center stands about 940 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 830 ft to 1,010 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Ball Knob Hill, about 1,180 ft, 11 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Antlers Sand (sandstone, claystone), from the Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 43×. 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, claystone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Claystone, sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.8 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 Chico reaches Galveston Bay and the Gulf of America by way of Dry Creek, the West Fork Trinity and the Trinity: about 580 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Woodlands Golf Course Lake, Eagle Mountain Lake and Lake Worth.
270 miles of the trip are on the Trinity.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Chico; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Chico has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 94° in August; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. About 35 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Chico normally reaches 65° and falls to 41°. The record high is 84°, in 1955; the record low 17°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.65 in, fell in 1909.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1897 at Bowie, 18 miles north, 140 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
