The Sierra Azul is a mountain range in

Santa Clara County Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259, as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County together f ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

. It is the southern half of the

Santa Cruz Mountains The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States. They form a ridge down the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco. They separate the Pacific Ocean fr ...

range, which is divided into two parts by

California Highway 17 State Route 17 (SR 17, locally known as Highway 17) is a state highway in the U.S. state of California that runs from State Route 1 in Santa Cruz to I-280 and I-880 in San Jose. SR 17, a freeway and expressway, carries substantial c ...

into what the colonizing Spanish called the

Sierra Morena The Sierra Morena is one of the main systems of mountain ranges in Spain. It stretches for 450 kilometres from east to west across the south of the Iberian Peninsula, forming the southern border of the ''Meseta Central'' plateau and providi ...

or "Brown Mountains" to the north and the Sierra Azul or "Blue Mountains" to the south. Part of the range is within the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve. The highest peak is

Mount Umunhum Mount Umunhum (Ohlone for "Resting Place of the Hummingbird") 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. ...

, the site of the former Almaden Air Force Station radar site and the current location of a

NEXRAD NEXRAD or Nexrad (Next-Generation Radar) is a network of 160 high-resolution S-band Doppler weather radars operated by the National Weather Service (NWS), an agency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) within the United ...

weather radar of the

National Weather Service The National Weather Service (NWS) is an agency of the United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weather-related products to organizations and the public for the ...

which serves the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

and Monterey Bay Area.

References

External links

Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve website
— ''part of the

Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District Formed in 1972 by voter initiative, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD) is a non-enterprise special district in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has acquired and preserved a regional green belt of open space land and provides o ...

system''. Santa Cruz Mountains Mountain ranges of Santa Clara County, California Mountain ranges of the San Francisco Bay Area Mountain ranges of Northern California {{SantaClaraCountyCA-geo-stub