The Golconda 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.
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy; warmer
Showers likely; cooler
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Chance of showers
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−8° on Nov. 12, 1985, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1877. Next is −5° in 1955.
Golconda’s center stands about 4,410 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,330 ft to 5,030 ft, a difference of 700 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sonoma Peak, about 9,310 ft, 9 miles southwest.
The section below crosses 9 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.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Age: Cambrian to Devonian, 359 to 497 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Volcanic. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Oligocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 34 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 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. 3 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.
A raindrop that lands in Golconda reaches the Great Basin by way of the Humboldt: about 180 river miles. The Great Basin has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Golconda; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Golconda has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 95° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in December. A normal year brings about 22 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 8 inches of water.
On November 14 Golconda normally reaches 55° and falls to 24°. The record high is 71°, in 2016; the record low −3°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 0.38 in, fell in 1965.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1877 from the Winnemucca Area threaded record (Winnemucca Airport, 17 miles west-southwest, 110 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
