The Bliss 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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78° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1905. Next is 74° in 2016.
Bliss’s center stands about 3,270 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,680 ft to 3,370 ft, a difference of 690 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is McKinney Butte, about 3,920 ft, 9 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Sediments and sedimentary rocks (Pleistocene and Pliocene) (gravel, sand, silt), from the Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 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 11×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mixed-clastic, volcanic. Age: Early Miocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 16 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Middle Miocene to Late Pliocene, 3 to 15 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.7 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.
A raindrop that lands in Bliss reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the Snake and the Columbia: about 880 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Umatilla, Brownlee Reservoir, Cove Arm Lake and Hells Canyon Reservoir.
240 miles of the trip are on the Snake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bliss; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bliss has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 99° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. About 11 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Bliss normally reaches 56° and falls to 29°. The record high is 74°, in 1999; the record low −6°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.58 in, fell in 2020.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1905 at Glenns Ferry, 19 miles west, 800 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
