The Inyokern 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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86° on Nov. 11, 1989, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1944. Next is 86° in 1995.
Inyokern’s center stands about 2,440 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,330 ft to 2,650 ft, a difference of 320 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Owens Peak, about 8,380 ft, 12 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Quaternary alluvium and marine deposits (coarse-detrital), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Granodiorite. Age: Permian to Tertiary, 2.6 to 260 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Diorite, gabbro. Age: Triassic to Cretaceous, 66 to 252 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 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.
Rain that falls on Inyokern runs only a short way, about 2 miles, to the desert basins of Owens Valley and Death Valley. The desert basins of Owens Valley and Death Valley has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Inyokern; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Inyokern has a hot desert climate. Summer afternoons average 105° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in December. About 5 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Inyokern normally reaches 70° and falls to 37°. The record high is 84°, in 2021; the record low 19°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 0.44 in, fell in 1944.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1944 at China Lake Naf, 7 miles east-northeast, 210 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
