The Murphy 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.
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Mostly sunny
Showers likely
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
75° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1935. Next is 73° in 1953.
Murphy’s center stands about 2,870 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,600 ft to 3,300 ft, a difference of 700 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Slacks Mountain, about 7,290 ft, 14 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Basalt (Pliocene and Miocene), from the Middle Miocene to Late Pliocene, 3 to 15 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 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.
Basalt. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Rhyolite. Age: Early Miocene to Middle Miocene, 14 to 17 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Middle Miocene to Late Pliocene, 3 to 15 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic, volcanic. Age: Early Miocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 16 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, granite. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 67 to 107 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 2 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 Murphy reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Rabbit Creek, the Snake and the Columbia: about 770 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Umatilla, Brownlee Reservoir 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 Murphy; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Murphy has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 95° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. About 8 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Murphy normally reaches 52° and falls to 31°. The record high is 69°, in 1999; the record low 16°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.59 in, fell in 1965.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1935 at Swan Falls Ph, 9 miles east-northeast, 540 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
