The McDermitt 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
Chance of showers
Showers likely
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
−1° on Nov. 16, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1892. Next is −1° in 2018.
McDermitt’s center stands about 4,430 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,400 ft to 4,670 ft, a difference of 270 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Eightmile Mountain, about 7,840 ft, 13 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium, undifferentiated (coarse-detrital, fine-detrital), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. 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 6 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel, silt. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gravel, boulders, clay. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Rhyolite, hypabyssal-quartz-latite, dacite. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 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. 2 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 McDermitt reaches the Black Rock Desert by way of The Slough and the Quinn: about 180 river miles. The Black Rock Desert has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Often dry. About 80% of the way is mapped as streams that run only after rain or snowmelt; the water makes the whole trip in floods.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of McDermitt; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
McDermitt has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in December. A normal year brings about 21 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 8 inches of water.
On November 14 McDermitt normally reaches 52° and falls to 22°. The record high is 71°, in 1999; the record low 3°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 0.30 in, fell in 1981.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1892 at Mcdermitt, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
