The Virginia 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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70° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 68° in 1990.
Virginia City’s center stands about 5,930 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,540 ft to 7,160 ft, a difference of 1,620 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Ramshorn Mountain, about 10,180 ft, 12 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Andesite and basalt (andesite, basalt), from the Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old.
The section below crosses 11 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.
Gneiss. Age: Archean. About 12 mi of the line.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone, black-shale. Age: Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Archean. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Mississippian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 331 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Black-shale, limestone, sandstone. Age: Middle Mississippian to Late Mississippian, 324 to 347 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. 5 smaller units 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.
Virginia City has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in December. A normal year brings about 65 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 16 inches of water.
On November 14 Virginia City normally reaches 44° and falls to 22°. The record high is 68°, in 1999; the record low −14°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.44 in, fell in 1996.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Virginia City, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
