The Sage 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Showers likely
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Mostly sunny
93° on Nov. 15, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 92° in 1989.
Sage’s center stands about 2,340 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,870 ft to 2,970 ft, a difference of 1,100 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Thomas Mountain, about 6,820 ft, 15 miles east.
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 5×. 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 13 mi of the line.
Plutonic, gneiss. Age: Paleoproterozoic to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 2,500 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Argillite. Age: Paleozoic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Diorite, gabbro. Age: Triassic to Cretaceous, 66 to 252 million years old. About 0.6 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 Sage reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Tucalota Creek, Murrieta Creek and the Santa Margarita: about 55 river miles.
Often dry. About 50% 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 Sage; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sage has a hot semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 97° in August; winter nights fall to about 39° in December. About 12 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Sage normally reaches 73° and falls to 45°. The record high is 91°, in 2021; the record low 30°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.29 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at San Jacinto, 15 miles north, 820 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
