Mount Vaca | |
---|---|
Highest point | |
Elevation | 2,822 ft (860 m) NAVD 88 [1] |
Prominence | 1,959 ft (597 m) [1] |
Listing | California county high points 53rd |
Coordinates | 38°24′01″N122°06′22″W / 38.4004017°N 122.1060683°W [2] |
Geography | |
Location | Napa and Solano counties, California, U.S. |
Parent range | Vaca Mountains |
Topo map | USGS Mount Vaca |
Mount Vaca is a mountain in Napa and Solano counties of Northern California. It is both the highest point in the Vaca Mountains and in Solano County. [3] It is also one of several peaks in the San Francisco Bay Area that receive winter snow.
Vaca is the Spanish word for cow. Although cattle ranching historically played an important role in the area, Mount Vaca and the nearby city of Vacaville are actually named for Juan Manuel Cabeza Vaca (1782–1856), who with Juan Felipe Pena received in 1843 the Rancho Los Putos Mexican land grant, which included the peak that now bears Vaca's name. [4]
The summit of Mount Vaca is reached via either Mix Canyon Road or Gates Canyon Road, both of which originate in Vacaville California. [5] These roads intersect Blue Ridge Road, which follows the ridge top to the summit.
The San Francisco Bay Area is surrounded by mountain ranges that obstruct weather radar, even government broadcasts, thereby leaving blind spots in the weather prediction system. As a consequence, television station KPIX-TV, a San Francisco CBS affiliate, partnered with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to build a Doppler weather radar on top of Mt. Vaca. Before this, the mountain blocked radar information about storms coming in from the Northwest, which compromised weather prediction and allowed for flooding, heavy rains, and high winds without prior warnings. This new radar system gives meteorologists a more complete view of precipitation and temperature patterns in the Bay Area, and allows for more accurate weather predictions. [6]
Vacaville is a city located in Solano County, California. Sitting about 35 miles (56 km) from Sacramento and 55 miles (89 km) from San Francisco, it is on the edge of the Sacramento Valley in Northern California. The city was founded in 1851 and is named after Juan Manuel Vaca.
Mount Diablo is a mountain of the Diablo Range, in Contra Costa County of the eastern San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California. It is south of Clayton and northeast of Danville. It is an isolated upthrust peak of 3,849 feet, visible from most of the San Francisco Bay Area. Mount Diablo appears from many angles to be a double pyramid and has many subsidiary peaks. The largest and closest is North Peak, the other half of the double pyramid, which is nearly as high in elevation at 3,557 feet (1,084 m), and is about one mile northeast of the main summit.
Mount Umunhum is a peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, located in Santa Clara County, California. It is the fourth-highest peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, after Loma Prieta, Crystal Peak, and Mt. Chual. Most of the mountain is located within the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve.
Mount Tamalpais, known locally as Mount Tam, is a peak in Marin County, California, United States, often considered symbolic of Marin County. Much of Mount Tamalpais is protected within public lands such as Mount Tamalpais State Park, the Marin Municipal Water District watershed, and National Park Service land, such as Muir Woods.
White Mountain Peak, at 14,252 feet (4,344 m), is the highest peak in the White Mountains of California, the highest peak in Mono County, and the third highest peak in the state after Mount Whitney and Mount Williamson. In spite of its name, the summit block of the peak has large swaths of very dark and colorful orange scree and rock; it is composed of Mesozoic metavolcanic rock, which is igneous rock altered by rising granite.
The Santa Lucia Mountains or Santa Lucia Range is a rugged mountain range in coastal central California, running from Carmel southeast for 140 miles (230 km) to the Cuyama River in San Luis Obispo County. The range is never more than 11 miles (18 km) from the coast. The range forms the steepest coastal slope in the contiguous United States. Cone Peak at 5,158 feet (1,572 m) tall and three miles (5 km) from the coast, is the highest peak in proximity to the ocean in the lower 48 United States. The range was a barrier to exploring the coast of central California for early Spanish explorers.
Mount Hamilton is a mountain in the Diablo Range in Santa Clara County, California. The mountain's peak, at 4,265 feet (1,300 m), overlooks the heavily urbanized Santa Clara Valley and is the site of Lick Observatory, the world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory. The asteroid 452 Hamiltonia, discovered in 1899, is named after the mountain. Golden eagle nesting sites are found on the slopes of Mount Hamilton. On clear days, Mount Tamalpais, the Santa Cruz Mountains, Monterey Bay, the Monterey Peninsula, and even Yosemite National Park are visible from the summit of the mountain.
Black Mountain, also known as Mount Day, is a mountain in the Diablo Range of eastern Santa Clara County, California, east of Poverty Ridge and Arroyo Hondo, and about 10 miles (16 km) from Milpitas.
Grizzly Peak is a summit in the Berkeley Hills above Berkeley, California. The peak is located on the border between Alameda and Contra Costa counties, within the boundaries of Tilden Regional Park, and directly behind the University of California, Berkeley campus.
Mount Sill is one of the fourteeners of the Sierra Nevada in California. It is located in the Palisades, a group of prominent rock peaks with a few small glaciers on their flanks. Mount Sill is located 0.6 miles (1 km) east of North Palisade, the high point of the group. The two peaks are connected by a high, rocky ridge, on the north side of which lies the Palisade Glacier. Mount Sill lies on the main Sierra Crest, but is at a point where the crest turns sharply, giving it particularly striking summit views. On one side is Kings Canyon National Park and Fresno County; on the other is the John Muir Wilderness, Inyo National Forest and Inyo County.
Mount Hood, also known as Hood Mountain is a mountain near the southeastern edge of Santa Rosa, California at the northeast of the Sonoma Valley and attains a height of 2,733 feet (833 m). The original name was Mount Wilikos, an Indian name meaning "willows." Most of the drainage from Mount Hood contributes to the headwaters of Sonoma Creek. A prominent feature is the extensive rock face visible on the upper half of the mountain as viewed from State Route 12. The habitats on the mountain include mixed oak forest, pygmy forest, chaparral and riparian zones. In prehistoric times the slopes of Mount Hood were inhabited by a division of the Yuki tribe. Most of Mount Hood is within the Hood Mountain Regional Park maintained by Sonoma County. Mount Hood is part of the inner coast Mayacamas Range, and lies mostly within Sonoma County, with a part of the mountain geographically within Napa County. Mount Hood affords overlooks of the Pacific Ocean, San Francisco Bay and "a spectacular view east to the Sierra Nevada Range."
Mount Saint Helena is a peak in the Mayacamas Mountains with flanks in Napa, Sonoma, and Lake counties of California. Composed of uplifted volcanic rocks from the Clear Lake Volcanic Field, it is one of the few mountains in the San Francisco Bay Area to receive any snowfall during the winter.
Arizona is a landlocked state situated in the southwestern region of the United States of America. It has a vast and diverse geography famous for its deep canyons, high- and low-elevation deserts, numerous natural rock formations, and volcanic mountain ranges. Arizona shares land borders with Utah to the north, the Mexican state of Sonora to the south, New Mexico to the east, and Nevada to the northwest, as well as water borders with California and the Mexican state of Baja California to the southwest along the Colorado River. Arizona is also one of the Four Corners states and is diagonally adjacent to Colorado.
This article lists the railroads and a timeline of railroad history in Solano County, California.
The Vaca Mountains are a mountain range in Napa and Solano Counties, California that is one of the California Coast Ranges. They represent the easternmost of the Inner Coast Ranges in north−central California, and divide the Suisun Valley on their west, from the Sacramento Valley on their east.
Mount Goddard is a mountain of California's Sierra Nevada, in the north section of Kings Canyon National Park. Goddard forms the southwest boundary of the Evolution Basin.
Twin Sisters are the twin summits of the highest peak in the Howell Mountains of Solano and Napa Counties, California.
The Quail Fire was a wildfire that burned during the 2020 California wildfire season southwest of Winters and north of Vacaville in Solano County, California in the United States. Igniting on Saturday, June 6, within the rural confines of Quail Canyon, the fire ballooned to an estimated 1,837 acres (743 ha) and destroyed three structures including one residential property. The fire was fully contained on Wednesday, June 10, 2020, and the cause remains under investigation.
The LNU Lightning Complex fires were a large complex of wildfires that burned during the 2020 California wildfire season across much of the Wine Country area of Northern California – Lake, Napa, Sonoma, Solano, and Yolo Counties, from August 17 to October 2, 2020. The complex was composed of numerous lightning-sparked fires, most of which were small. While they ignited separately from each other, the Hennessey Fire eventually grew to merge with the Gamble, Green, Markley, Spanish, and Morgan fires, scorching 192,000 acres (777 km2) by itself, for a total burn area of 363,220 acres (1,470 km2) in the complex. The fire, which burned in the hills surrounding several large cities, such as Fairfield, Napa, and Vacaville, destroyed 1,491 structures and damaged a further 232. In all, six people were killed and another five injured. The LNU Lightning Complex is the seventh-largest wildfire in the recorded history of California.
An extremely powerful extratropical bomb cyclone began in late October 2021 in the Northeast Pacific and struck the Western United States and Western Canada. The storm was the third and the most powerful cyclone in a series of powerful storms that struck the region within a week. The cyclone tapped into a large atmospheric river and underwent explosive intensification, becoming a bomb cyclone on October 24. The bomb cyclone had a minimum central pressure of 942 millibars (27.8 inHg) at its peak, making it the most powerful cyclone recorded in the Northeast Pacific. The system had severe impacts across Western North America, before dissipating on October 26. The storm shattered multiple pressure records across parts of the Pacific Northwest. Additionally, the bomb cyclone was the most powerful storm on record to strike the region, in terms of minimum central pressure. The bomb cyclone brought powerful gale-force winds and flooding to portions of Western North America. At its height, the storm cut the power to over 370,500 customers across the Western U.S. and British Columbia. The storm killed at least two people; damage from the storm was estimated at several hundred million dollars. The bomb cyclone was compared to the Columbus Day Storm of 1962, in terms of ferocity.