Golden State Weather Climate divisionsCentral Coast Drainage

Central Coast Drainage

Bay Area and the central coast — marine-dominated.

NCEI DIVISION4CALIFORNIA

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.

San Francisco Bay AreaThe most microclimate-dense ground in North America, and a gap in the Coast Ranges that explains it.COAST6 PLACES Central CoastThe coldest summer water on the coast, and the fog it manufactures.COAST6 PLACES

California map highlighting Central Coast Drainage.

2 terrain regions, 12 stations. Atlas regions assigned to CA-4.

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.

12Atlas stations

14.6–44.5″Annual precipitation

58.8–72.8°FJuly mean

26–721ftStation 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
Santa Rosa	San Francisco Bay Area	167	49.0°	66.8°	31.5″	—	89%
Oakland	San Francisco Bay Area	43	52.5°	64.1°	22.6″	—	90%
San Francisco	San Francisco Bay Area	52	52.2°	60.3°	22.9″	—	91%
Livermore	San Francisco Bay Area	486	47.9°	72.8°	14.6″	—	90%
Half Moon Bay	San Francisco Bay Area	69	51.4°	58.8°	26.0″	—	88%
San Jose	San Francisco Bay Area	82	51.1°	70.7°	16.1″	—	90%
Santa Cruz	Central Coast	33	52.0°	64.3°	30.6″	—	92%
Salinas	Central Coast	52	52.3°	62.4°	15.4″	—	92%
Monterey	Central Coast	26	51.2°	60.1°	17.1″	—	90%
Big Sur	Central Coast	190	51.5°	63.0°	44.5″	—	92%
Paso Robles	Central Coast	721	48.0°	72.0°	15.3″	—	92%
San Luis Obispo	Central Coast	233	54.5°	66.2°	22.4″	—	93%

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.