Golden State Weather Climate divisionsSacramento Drainage

Sacramento Drainage

Valley floor plus the Cascade and Modoc uplands.

NCEI DIVISION2CALIFORNIA

Climate divisions are broad reporting areas. Golden State Weather's eighteen terrain regions nest inside them imperfectly but usefully: the division supplies the statewide frame, while the region explains which range, gap, basin or coastline makes one station differ from the next.

Shasta CascadeTwo active volcanoes big enough to make their own weather.MOUNTAINS1 PLACES Modoc Plateau & NortheastCalifornia's coldest ground — high desert with a continental winter.BEYOND THE CREST2 PLACES Sacramento ValleyHot, dry summers; and the fog that used to define its winters.CENTRAL VALLEY3 PLACES Sacramento–San Joaquin DeltaThe only sea-level break in the Coast Ranges, and California's air conditioner.CENTRAL VALLEY1 PLACES

California map highlighting Sacramento Drainage.

4 terrain regions, 7 stations. Atlas regions assigned to CA-2.

The atlas station sample

PRONOT AN AREAL AVERAGE

These figures summarize the named NOAA stations attached to this site's places inside the division. They are useful for comparing its internal spread, but they are not NCEI's official gridded or area-weighted divisional series. Mountains and cities are intentionally over-represented because this is a terrain atlas.

7Atlas stations

11.7–42.6″Annual precipitation

68.0–83.5°FJuly mean

25–4,370ftStation elevation

Atlas station sample; not an official area-weighted divisional series.
Place	Region	Elev ft	Jan mean	Jul mean	Annual precip	Snow	Nov–Apr share
Alturas	Modoc Plateau & Northeast	4,370	32.7°	68.0°	11.7″	—	66%
Mount Shasta City	Shasta Cascade	3,606	35.8°	68.1°	42.6″	89.3″	84%
Redding	Sacramento Valley	495	47.5°	83.5°	33.5″	2.6″	85%
Susanville	Modoc Plateau & Northeast	4,180	32.5°	70.5°	13.0″	—	79%
Chico	Sacramento Valley	190	46.2°	78.1°	27.4″	—	85%
Sacramento	Sacramento Valley	25	47.6°	75.9°	18.1″	—	89%
Antioch	Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta	46	48.0°	76.0°	12.6″	—	92%

The measured record for this division

NOAA computes an official area-weighted monthly series for every climate division, back to 1895. Our companion site carries all of it — the warming rate, the wettest and driest water years, the drought ledger and the ENSO correlation — on Golden State Climate. Free, ungated, and recomputed from NCEI's published tables.