The Sparks 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
Showers likely; cooler
Sunny
Showers likely
Showers likely
Partly cloudy
75° on Nov. 13, 1990, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 75° in 1995.
Sparks’s center stands about 4,410 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,380 ft to 4,820 ft, a difference of 440 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Snowflower Mountain, about 10,200 ft, 14 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Older alluvium and alluvial fan deposits (coarse-detrital, fine-detrital), from the Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 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 10 mi of the line.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Oligocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 34 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Andesite, dacite. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Basalt, basaltic-andesite. Age: Pliocene to Holocene, less than 5.3 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.
A raindrop that lands in Sparks reaches Pyramid Lake by way of the Truckee: about 60 river miles. Pyramid Lake 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 Sparks; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sparks has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 94° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. A normal year brings about 21 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 7 inches of water.
On November 14 Sparks normally reaches 57° and falls to 31°. The record high is 74°, in 2016; the record low 4°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 0.57 in, fell in 1909.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Reno Area threaded record (Reno Airport, 2 miles south-southwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
