The Fortuna 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers; cooler
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
−14° on Nov. 12, 2022, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1963. Next is −11° in 1995.
Fortuna’s center stands about 2,200 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,140 ft to 2,350 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Bullion Creek Formation (claystone, siltstone), from the Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Claystone, siltstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 20 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Siltstone, claystone, sandstone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 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.
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.
Fortuna has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about −3° in January. A normal year brings about 36 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 15 inches of water.
On November 14 Fortuna normally reaches 35° and falls to 15°. The record high is 60°, in 1990; the record low −9°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.22 in, fell in 1964.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1963 at Fortuna 1 W, here, 150 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
