The Orofino 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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69° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1903. Next is 65° in 1934.
Orofino’s center stands about 1,420 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,000 ft to 3,030 ft, a difference of 2,030 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Whiskey Butte, about 4,420 ft, 15 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Riggins Group, Orofino series, and related rocks (schist, gneiss, amphibolite), from the Permian to Cretaceous, 66 to 299 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 7×. 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, basaltic-andesite. Age: Early Miocene to Late Miocene, 6 to 18 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Schist, gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Permian to Cretaceous, 66 to 299 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Quartz-diorite. Age: Late Jurassic to Late Cretaceous, 90 to 160 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic. Age: Early Miocene to Late Miocene, 8 to 17 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, tonalite, quartz-diorite. Age: Late Jurassic to Late Cretaceous, 87 to 160 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 Orofino reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Orofino Creek, the Clearwater, the Snake and the Columbia: about 500 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Umatilla.
210 miles of the trip are on the Columbia.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Orofino; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Orofino has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. A normal year brings about 18 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 26 inches of water.
On November 14 Orofino normally reaches 48° and falls to 33°. The record high is 69°, in 1999; the record low 8°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.82 in, fell in 1906.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1903 from the Dworshak Area threaded record (Dworshak Fish Hatchery, 3 miles west-northwest, 420 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
