Shafter, California Weather
Shafter, California — live current conditions, hourly and 7-day forecasts, NWS alerts, radar and satellite imagery, soil and crop conditions for Shafter, Kern County.
Full aviation weather for Shafter is published on the Shafter Airport - Minter Field (KMIT) page, 7 km away. It carries the current METAR decoded into plain language — surface wind, visibility, cloud layers and ceiling, temperature and dewpoint, and altimeter setting — alongside the raw observation as transmitted. 6 airfields within reach of Shafter have their own pages, listed below.
The Terminal Aerodrome Forecast (TAF) is shown across its full validity period, with each change group broken out so you can see when conditions are expected to shift. Flight category is derived automatically — VFR, MVFR, IFR or LIFR — from reported ceiling and visibility, with runway details and field elevation alongside. Observations update roughly hourly and forecasts several times a day.
Other airports near Shafter: Wasco Kern County Airport (KL19) 15 km · Poso Kern County Airport (KL73) 17 km · Meadows Field (KBFL) 21 km · Elk Hills Buttonwillow Airport (KL62) 25 km · Delano Municipal Airport (KDLO) 27 km
Conditions reported at KMIT describe the airfield itself. Weather 7 km away can differ, particularly in terrain or near the coast. For conditions at Shafter specifically, see the current conditions and forecast above.
Soil conditions, frost risk and crop weather for Shafter.
About Shafter, California
Shafter lies under a vast, often searingly bright sky, a place where the Central Valley floor stretches out with an almost religious devotion to flatness. It lies 7.5 miles south-south-east of Wasco, CA (from Wasco, CA: bearing 149°T), and is situated 7.2 miles north of Rio Bravo. The air here, especially in the long afternoons of summer, carries a dry, almost mineral scent, a testament to the sun's relentless dominion over the pale, ochre soil. Fields of cotton, their bolls like improbable snowdrifts against the parched earth, ripple in the infrequent breeze, punctuated by the stark, geometric lines of irrigation ditches. The horizon is a clean, unwavering line, broken only by the distant, hazy silhouette of the Tehachapi Mountains, a soft, blue smudge that hints at a world beyond this sun-baked expanse. Shafter’s identity is deeply entwined with the cultivation of the land, a legacy born of water and grit. For generations, the economy of Shafter has been built upon the bounty of its agricultural heart, with potatoes and cotton dominating the landscape's narrative. The town itself, a collection of sturdy, functional buildings, hums with the quiet industry of a place that understands the value of hard work and the rhythm of the seasons. It’s a community that has learned to coax life from seemingly inhospitable ground, a quiet resilience etched into the very character of its people.
Live animated radar for Shafter and surroundings — RainViewer.
NOAA GOES-16 GEOCOLOR — live animated loop updated every 10 minutes. Shows cloud cover, storm systems and weather patterns across the continental US.
Source: NOAA/NESDIS GOES-East · Public domain · Auto-updates on page reload
| Location | Shafter, Kern County, California |
| Coordinates | 35.500514°N, 119.271776°W |
| Timezone | Pacific Time (America/Los_Angeles) |
| ZIP Code(s) | 94941, 93263 |
| Area Code | 510, 661 |
| Page generated | September 2026 |
| Weather data | Open-Meteo (open-source), NOAA National Weather Service |
About This Shafter, California Weather Page
This page provides live weather conditions and forecasts for Shafter, California, including current conditions, a 24-hour hourly forecast, 7-day outlook, NWS extended text forecast, precipitation radar and NOAA GOES-16 satellite imagery. Aviation weather — live METAR observations and TAF forecasts — is published separately on the pages for the nearest reporting airports, linked from the aviation section above. Additional sections may include tide predictions, wave height, wave direction and sea-surface temperature, a barometric pressure trend, and a solunar-based fishing forecast with a fishing-conditions rating for coastal localities, and soil temperature, crop weather and live USGS river gauge data for agricultural areas near a monitored waterway. All data updates automatically on every page visit.
Location data for Shafter includes coordinates 35.500514°N, 119.271776°W, situated in Kern County. ZIP code 94941, 93263. Telephone area code: 510, 661. Timezone: Pacific Time (America/Los_Angeles).
Weather data is sourced from the NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) and the open-source Open-Meteo API. River and stream data is sourced from the USGS National Water Information System. Tide predictions are sourced from NOAA CO-OPS; marine and solunar data are modeled from Open-Meteo and public sunrise/moon calculations and should be treated as a general guide alongside on-the-water conditions. Radar is provided by RainViewer. Satellite imagery is sourced from NOAA/NESDIS GOES-East and is public domain.
