The Alturas 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.
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3.32 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1894. The next wettest, 2.19 inches, fell in 1903.
Alturas’s center stands about 4,360 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,340 ft to 4,790 ft, a difference of 450 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Payne Peak, about 7,580 ft, 15 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Plio-Pleistocene and Pliocene loosely consolidated deposits (sandstone, conglomerate), from the Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 8×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Andesite. Age: Late Oligocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 24 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Late Oligocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 24 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3.6 million years old. About 1 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.
A raindrop that lands in Alturas reaches San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean by way of the Pit and the Sacramento: about 510 river miles.
310 miles of the trip are on the Sacramento.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Alturas; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Alturas has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in December. A normal year brings about 22 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 13 inches of water.
On November 14 Alturas normally reaches 52° and falls to 27°. The record high is 70°, in 1999; the record low 5°, in 2022. The most rain on this date, 2.70 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1894 at Cedarville, 19 miles east, 330 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
