The Vernon plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
76° on Nov. 12, 1973, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1920. Next is 73° in 1967.
Vernon’s center stands about 6,910 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,700 ft to 7,330 ft, a difference of 630 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Greens Peak, about 10,120 ft, 12 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Holocene to middle Pliocene basaltic rocks, from the Early Pliocene to Holocene, less than 4 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Basalt. Age: Early Pliocene to Holocene, less than 4 million years old. About 21 mi of the line.
Sand, silt, clay. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Late Triassic, 210 to 230 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
Vernon has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in June; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. A normal year brings about 66 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 24 inches of water.
On November 14 Vernon normally reaches 55° and falls to 28°. The record high is 73°, in 1967; the record low 6°, in 1944. The most rain on this date, 1.15 in, fell in 1968.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1920 at Mcnary 2 N, 14 miles southwest, 430 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.