The Dunsmuir 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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80° on Nov. 13, 1995, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1978. Next is 75° in 2008.
Dunsmuir’s center stands about 2,340 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,180 ft to 5,240 ft, a difference of 3,060 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Shasta, about 14,110 ft, 14 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mesozoic gabbroic rocks, unit 1 (Trinity Ophiolite) (diorite, gabbro), from the Early Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 455 to 480 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 3×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mafic-volcanic. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3.6 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Diorite, gabbro. Age: Early Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 455 to 480 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Peridotite. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mudstone, volcanic. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 273 to 359 million years old. About 0.1 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 Dunsmuir reaches San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean by way of the Sacramento: about 360 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Dunsmuir; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Dunsmuir has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. A normal year brings about 27 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 63 inches of water.
On November 14 Dunsmuir normally reaches 57° and falls to 34°. The record high is 78°, in 1995; the record low 20°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 2.74 in, fell in 1981.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1978 at Dunsmuir Treatment Pl, here, 170 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
