Golden State Weather Climate divisionsSan Joaquin Drainage

San Joaquin Drainage

The dry, enclosed southern valley.

NCEI DIVISION5CALIFORNIA

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 Joaquin ValleyA basin closed on three sides — which is why it is the driest, hottest and haziest air in the state.CENTRAL VALLEY4 PLACES

California map highlighting San Joaquin Drainage.

1 terrain regions, 4 stations. Atlas regions assigned to CA-5.

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.

4Atlas stations

6.4–17.3″Annual precipitation

77.8–84.8°FJuly mean

13–404ftStation 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
Stockton	San Joaquin Valley	13	48.8°	77.8°	17.3″	—	90%
Modesto	San Joaquin Valley	88	47.5°	78.8°	12.3″	—	88%
Fresno	San Joaquin Valley	308	48.0°	83.5°	11.0″	—	88%
Bakersfield	San Joaquin Valley	404	49.5°	84.8°	6.4″	0.1″	90%

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.