Live cameras in Bakersfield, United States

Bakersfield, the county seat of Kern County, sits near the southern end of California's San Joaquin Valley, beside the Kern River where it leaves the Sierra Nevada foothills. It is a big city, with about 403,000 people in 2020, the ninth-largest population in the state. Oil and farming built it: Kern County pumps more oil than any other county in California and is among the most productive farm counties in the nation, growing almonds, grapes, citrus and carrots. The city also gave its name to the Bakersfield sound, the twangy country music of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, and the Crystal Palace music hall keeps that tradition alive.

Long before the oil fields, the Yowlumne, a Yokuts people, lived along the branches of the Kern River delta here, and the Spanish missionary Francisco Garcés passed through in 1776.

Freeways of the southern valley

Caltrans supplies all of the pictures linked to Bakersfield, drawing them from its CWWP2 camera feed, the same source QuickMap uses. They are periodic still frames. State Route 99 runs north and south through the city as the main road of the valley, State Route 58 heads east toward Tehachapi and the Mojave Desert, and State Route 178 follows the Kern River canyon into the mountains. Interstate 5 passes to the west on its way to the Grapevine and Los Angeles.

Bakersfield runs on the same Pacific clock as the coast. Summers are very hot and dry, with long strings of days above one hundred degrees. In winter, thick tule fog can blanket the valley for days at a time, cutting visibility on Route 99 to almost nothing, which is when these camera views are most useful. Spring brings wildflowers to the nearby hills, and most of the scant yearly rain falls between November and March.

The Kern River Parkway trail follows the riverbed across the city, and the wildflower slopes and bluffs of Wind Wolves Preserve lie about forty minutes to the south.

Sources: Bakersfield, California - Wikipedia · California State Route 99 - Wikipedia · Caltrans QuickMap.