High and Low California.
California, with an area of 158,000 square miles, is the second largest State in the Union. It exhibits wide geographic diversity, for it includes the lowest area in the United States—Death Valley, 276 feet below sea level—and the highest—Mount Whitney, 14,501 feet above the sea.
Similarly there is a great diversity in scenic effects, climate, and vegetation. Records obtained at meteorologic stations in the Salton Sink indicate a maximum temperature of 130 degrees in the shade, the highest recorded within the continental United States, while it is probable that minimum temperature on the higher peaks, like Mount Whitney and Mount Shasta, approach the minimum within our boundaries, a total difference of nearly 200 degrees.
Records of rainfall in the most arid sections of the southern deserts of the State represent the extreme of aridity in the United States, showing an annual average of less than three inches and periods of twelve months or more, with only traces of rain, whereas the precipitation in northwestern California is very heavy, an annual average of close to one hundred inches being recorded at a few stations in Mendocino and Del Norte Counties.