The Zephyrhills West 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.
90° on Nov. 13, 2008, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1895. Next is 90° in 2023.
Zephyrhills West’s center stands about 90 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 70 ft to 180 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Nursery Hill, about 270 ft, 6 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Hawthorn Group, Undifferentiated (sand, clay), from the Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand, clay. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Oligocene, 23 to 34 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sand, clay, phosphorite. Age: Middle Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 16 million years old. About 4 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 Zephyrhills West reaches Tampa Bay and the Gulf of America by way of the Hillsborough: about 45 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Zephyrhills West; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Zephyrhills West has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 49° in January. About 54 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Zephyrhills West normally reaches 77° and falls to 57°. The record high is 88°, in 2008; the record low 33°, in 1906. The most rain on this date, 2.15 in, fell in 1941.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1895 at Saint Leo, 8 miles north-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.