The Mountain Center 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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5.02 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1943. The next wettest, 3.07 inches, fell in 1946.
Mountain Center’s center stands about 4,600 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,130 ft to 6,570 ft, a difference of 3,440 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is San Jacinto Peak, about 10,740 ft, 8 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mesozoic granitic rocks, unit 2 (Peninsular Ranges) (tonalite), from the Middle Jurassic to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 175 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 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.
Tonalite. Age: Middle Jurassic to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 175 million years old. About 17 mi of the line.
Plutonic, gneiss. Age: Paleoproterozoic to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 2,500 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
Diorite, gabbro. Age: Triassic to Cretaceous, 66 to 252 million years old. About 0.3 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 Mountain Center reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Coldwater Creek, the San Jacinto, Temescal Wash and the Santa Ana: about 120 river miles.
55 miles of the trip are on the San Jacinto.
Often dry. About 70% 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 Mountain Center; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Mountain Center has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in August; winter nights fall to about 30° in February. A normal year brings about 31 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 24 inches of water.
On November 14 Mountain Center normally reaches 62° and falls to 35°. The record high is 78°, in 1999; the record low 14°, in 1964. The most rain on this date, 1.29 in, fell in 1946.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1943 at Idyllwild Fire Dept, 3 miles north-northeast, 780 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
