The Menan 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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−11° on Nov. 15, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1977. Next is −8° in 1978.
Menan’s center stands about 4,800 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,780 ft to 5,070 ft, a difference of 290 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Menan Buttes, about 5,600 ft, 5 miles north-northeast.
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 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 36×. 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 14 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3 million years old. About 10 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 Menan reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Spring Creek, the Snake and the Columbia: about 1,140 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 Menan; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Menan has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. About 13 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Menan normally reaches 43° and falls to 24°. The record high is 63°, in 1999; the record low −2°, in 1978. The most rain on this date, 0.42 in, fell in 1996.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1977 at Rexburg Byu Idaho, 12 miles east-northeast, 200 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
