The Palmdale 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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88° on Nov. 16, 1992, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1931. Next is 85° in 1995.
Palmdale’s center stands about 2,660 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,550 ft to 3,200 ft, a difference of 650 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pacifico Mountain, about 7,100 ft, 14 miles south-southeast.
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 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. 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 14 mi of the line.
Quartz-monzonite. Age: Late Triassic, 218 to 218 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Early Miocene, 19 to 23 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Miocene to Pleistocene, less than 23 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Anorthosite, gabbro. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.2 to 1.2 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Oligocene to Pleistocene, less than 34 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit along the line are not listed.
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.
Palmdale has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 98° in August; winter nights fall to about 32° in December. About 6 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Palmdale normally reaches 68° and falls to 38°. The record high is 84°, in 1932; the record low 24°, in 1938. The most rain on this date, 0.81 in, fell in 1946.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1931 from the Palmdale Area threaded record (Palmdale Airport, 4 miles north-northeast, 150 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
