The Charlo 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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71° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1951. Next is 66° in 1990.
Charlo’s center stands about 2,940 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,880 ft to 3,080 ft, a difference of 200 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is McDonald Peak, about 9,710 ft, 13 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Glacial lake deposit (silt, sand, clay), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 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 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Silt, sand, clay. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Quartzite, argillite, metasiltstone. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite, metasiltstone, argillite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 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. 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 Charlo reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Mission Creek, the Flathead, the Clark Fork, the Pend Oreille and the Columbia: about 1,000 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Pend Oreille, Lake Umatilla and Noxon Rapids Reservoir.
460 miles of the trip are on the Columbia.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Charlo; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Charlo has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. A normal year brings about 34 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 16 inches of water.
On November 14 Charlo normally reaches 40° and falls to 26°. The record high is 62°, in 1990; the record low −4°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.38 in, fell in 2021.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1951 at Skq Dam, 17 miles north-northwest, 210 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
