The Sugar City 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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−18° on Nov. 16, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1907. Next is −15° in 1955.
Sugar City’s center stands about 4,890 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,860 ft to 4,930 ft, a difference of 70 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is White Owl Butte, about 6,330 ft, 12 miles southeast.
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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 15×. 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 11 mi of the line.
Rhyolite. Age: Pleistocene, 0.6 to 2 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Rhyolite. Age: Late Miocene to Late Pliocene, 3 to 6.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Middle Miocene to Late Pliocene, 3 to 15 million years old. About 0.9 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 Sugar City reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the Teton, the Henrys Fork, the Snake and the Columbia: about 1,170 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 Sugar City; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sugar City has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in August; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Sugar City normally reaches 44° and falls to 21°. The record high is 64°, in 1953; the record low −3°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.40 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1907 at Sugar City, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
