The Lincoln 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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70° on Nov. 15, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1952. Next is 66° in 1953.
Lincoln’s center stands about 4,760 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,720 ft to 4,810 ft, a difference of 90 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Taylor Mountain, about 7,370 ft, 15 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvial deposits (gravel, sand, silt), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 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 13×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Rhyolite. Age: Late Miocene to Late Pliocene, 3 to 6.6 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone. Age: Jurassic, 145 to 202 million years old. About 1 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 Lincoln reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Sand Creek, the Reservation Canal, the Blackfoot, the Snake and the Columbia: about 1,120 river miles.
Lakes on the way: American Falls Reservoir, Lake Umatilla, Brownlee Reservoir and Cove Arm Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Lincoln; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lincoln has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. About 14 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Lincoln normally reaches 44° and falls to 26°. The record high is 64°, in 1999; the record low −4°, in 1978. The most rain on this date, 0.55 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1952 at Idaho Falls - Kifi, 2 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
