Needham Mountain is a mountain summit of the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

, located in

Tulare County, California Tulare County ( ) is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 473,117. The county seat is Visalia, California, Visalia. The county is named for ...

. It is located in the southern Sierra Nevada, in the central part of

Sequoia National Park Sequoia National Park is an American national park in the southern Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California. The park was established on September 25, 1890, and today protects of forested mountainous terrain. Encompassing ...

. Needham Mountain is miles east of

Mineral King Mineral King is a subalpine glacial valley located in the southern part of Sequoia National Park, in the U.S. state of California. The valley lies at the headwaters of the East Fork of the Kaweah River, which rises at the eastern part of the vall ...

, northeast of

Mount Kaweah Mount Kaweah () is a mountain in California's Sequoia National Park and forms part of the Kaweah Peaks Ridge, a spur of the Great Western Divide which extends south from Triple Divide Peak (Tulare County, California), Triple Divide Peak. It has a ...

, and southwest of the highest peak in the state,

Mount Whitney Mount Whitney (Paiute: Tumanguya; ''Too-man-i-goo-yah'') is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States and the Sierra Nevada, with an elevation of . It is in East–Central California, on the boundary between California's Inyo and Tu ...

. With an altitude of , Needham Mountain is the twentieth-highest mountain in California with a prominence of . The mountain is named after an American congressman who represented California at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries,

James C. Needham James Carson Needham (September 17, 1864 – July 11, 1942) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a seven-term U.S. Representative from California from 1899 to 1913. Biography Born in a covered wagon at Carson City, Nevada, Jam ...

. The

first ascent In mountaineering, a first ascent (abbreviated to FA in guide books) is the first successful, documented attainment of the top of a mountain or the first to follow a particular climbing route. First mountain ascents are notable because they en ...

of the summit was made in July 1916, by M. R. Parsons, Agnes Vaile, H. B. Graham, and Edmund Chamberlain.

Climate

Needham Mountain is located in an

alpine climate Alpine climate is the typical weather (climate) for elevations above the tree line, where trees fail to grow due to cold. This climate is also referred to as a mountain climate or highland climate. Definition There are multiple definitions of ...

zone. Most

weather front A weather front is a boundary separating air masses for which several characteristics differ, such as air density, wind, temperature, and humidity. Disturbed and unstable weather due to these differences often arises along the boundary. For in ...

s originate in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, and travel east toward the Sierra Nevada mountains. As fronts approach, they are forced upward by the peaks, causing them to drop their moisture in the form of rain or snowfall onto the range (

orographic lift Orographic lift occurs when an air mass is forced from a low elevation to a higher elevation as it moves over rising terrain. As the air mass gains altitude it quickly cools down adiabatically, which can raise the relative humidity to 100% and cr ...

). Precipitation

runoff Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to: * RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program * Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed * Runoff or run-off, a stock market ...

from the mountain drains east to Big Arroyo, which is a tributary of the

Kern River The Kern River, previously Rio de San Felipe, later La Porciuncula, is an Endangered, Wild and Scenic river in the U.S. state of California, approximately long. It drains an area of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains northeast of Bakersfiel ...

References

External links

* Weather forecast
Needham Mountain
{{California highest Mountains of Tulare County, California Mountains of Sequoia National Park North American 3000 m summits Mountains of Northern California Sierra Nevada (United States)

Climate

See also

References

External links