The La Mirada 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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95° on Nov. 12, 1974, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1958. Next is 95° in 2021.
La Mirada’s center stands about 190 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 70 ft to 480 ft, a difference of 410 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Gilman Peak, about 1,660 ft, 14 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Older Quaternary alluvium and marine deposits (coarse-detrital), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 14×. 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 11 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Oligocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 34 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 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 La Mirada reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of La Mirada Creek, Coyote Creek and the San Gabriel: about 13 river miles.
Often dry. About 80% of the way is mapped as streams that run only after rain or snowmelt; the water makes the whole trip in floods.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of La Mirada; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
La Mirada has a hot semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in August; winter nights fall to about 46° in December. About 12 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 La Mirada normally reaches 73° and falls to 52°. The record high is 91°, in 2007; the record low 39°, in 1964. The most rain on this date, 1.07 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1958 from the Long Beach Area threaded record (Long Beach Daugherty Airport, 11 miles southwest, 160 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
