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According to the United States Census Bureau, the city of San Jose has a total area of 178.2 mi. 174.9 mi of it is land and 3.3 mi of it (1.86%) is water.

San Jose lies near the San Andreas Fault; a major source of earthquake activity in California. The most serious earthquake, in 1906, damaged many buildings in San Jose as described earlier. Earlier significant quakes rocked the city in 1839, 1851, 1858, 1864, 1865, 1868, and 1891. The Daly City Earthquake of 1957 caused some damage. The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 also did some damage to parts of the city. The other faults near San Jose are the Monte Vista Fault, South Hayward Fault, Northern Calaveras Fault, and Central Calaveras Fault.

The Guadalupe River runs from the Santa Cruz Mountains (which separate the South Bay from the Pacific Coast) flowing north through San Jose, ending in the San Francisco Bay at Alviso. Along the southern part of the river is the neighborhood of Almaden Valley, originally named for the mercury mines which produced mercury needed for gold extraction from quartz during the California gold rush as well as mercury fulminate blasting caps and detonators for the U.S. military from 1870 to 1945.

The lowest point in San Jose is at sea level at the San Francisco Bay in Alviso; the highest is 4,372 feet (1,333 m) at Copernicus Peak, Mount Hamilton, which is technically outside the city limit. Due to the proximity to Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton, San Jose has taken several steps to reduce light pollution, including replacing all street lamps with low pressure sodium lamps. To recognize the city's efforts, the asteroid 6216 San Jose was named after the city. Some residents object to the deep yellow color of the streetlights, saying they are distracting because they are the same shade of yellow as traffic lights and other illuminated traffic warnings.[21]


Climate

Mount Hamilton range showing summer's golden mantle. Dark green areas in hills are primarily scrub oak and other low-growing shrubs, with possibly a grass-fire burned area on the far right.
Mount Hamilton range in January, with morning fog clearing away.San Jose, like most of the Bay Area, has a Mediterranean climate tempered by the presence of the San Francisco Bay. Unlike San Francisco, which is exposed to the ocean or Bay on three sides and whose temperature therefore varies relatively little year-round and overnight, San Jose lies more inland, protected on three sides by mountains. This shelters the city from rain and makes it more of a semiarid, near-desert area, with a mean annual rainfall of only 14.4 inches (366 mm), compared to some other parts of the Bay Area, which can get up to four times that amount. It also avoids San Francisco's omnipresent fog most of the year.

However, temperatures are generally moderate. January's average high is 59 °F (15 °C) and average low is 42 °F (6 °C), with overnight freezes several nights each year; July's average high is 84 °F (29 °C) and average low is 58 °F (14 °C), with heat exceeding 100 °F (38 °C) several days each year. The highest temperature ever recorded in San Jose was 109 °F (42.8 °C) on June 14, 2000; the lowest was 17 °F (-8.3 °C) on January 9, 1920 and January 10, 1920. Temperatures between night and day can vary by 30 or 40 °F (17 to 22 °C).

With the light rainfall, San Jose experiences over 300 days a year of full or significant sunshine. Rain occurs primarily in the months from October through April or May, with hardly any rainfall from June through September. During the winter, hillsides and fields turn green with native grasses and vegetation, although deciduous trees are bare; with the coming of the annual summer dry period, the vegetation dies and dries, giving the hills a golden cover, which some find beautiful but which also provides fuel for frequent grass fires.

The snow level drops as low as 2,000 ft (610 m) above sea level, or lower, occasionally each winter, coating nearby Mount Hamilton, and less frequently the Santa Cruz Mountains, with snow that normally lasts a few days. This sometimes snarls traffic traveling on State Route 17 towards Santa Cruz. Snow occasionally falls in San Jose, but until recently, the most recent snow to remain on the ground was in February of 1976 when many residents around the city saw as much as 3 inches on car and roof tops. However, in March of 2006, a smaller amount, up to one inch of snow fell in downtown San Jose as well as other areas around the city at elevations of only 90 feet to 200 feet above sea level.

Again, like most of the Bay Area, San Jose is made up of dozens of microclimates. Downtown San Jose experiences the lightest rainfall in the city, while South San Jose, only 10 miles (16 km) distant, experiences more rainfall and slightly more extreme temperatures.

This above information is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from this Wikipedia article.

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